


Perfect Tense

by shatteredhourglass



Series: Winterhawk Bingo [8]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Bad Puns, Banter, Blood and Violence, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Deaf Clint Barton, Flirting, Hurt Clint Barton, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mother Hen Bucky Barnes, POV Bucky Barnes, Protective Bucky Barnes, Ronin Clint Barton, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Serious Injuries, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Is A Terrible Patient, Syringe Mention, Top Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-18 10:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: “Who the fuck are you and how did you get this line?”“I have my ways,” the voice says, amused. “Don’t worry, I’m just enjoying the view,Captain America.”





	1. Chapter 1

There are two guys outside when Bucky rocks up, tired and unimpressed with the world in general.

They’re in black suits, the kind of thing that sends off alarm bells in any sensible person’s head, and Bucky’s no different. This is definitely the place. It would’ve been nice to show up on a motorcycle, have an arrival that was at least slightly cool. Instead, he slides out of the taxi after giving a hefty tip to the gobsmacked driver, wishes like hell that Steve was here.

Steve was _supposed_ to be here, but he’d gotten out of it via being literally tied down to a hospital bed by a disgruntled Sam Wilson. Unfortunately, the people who had hurt him weren’t allowed to know they’d _succeeded_ in harming him.

“Captain America is here!” One of the suited man yells and points, and Bucky sighs, flips the shield off his back. Well, at least they can’t tell the difference, even if the costume is chafing in all the worst places.

They draw their guns but it’s too late, Bucky’s already throwing the shield in their direction, knocking one’s out of his hand and catching it in time to deflect the shots from the other. It’s pitifully easy to avoid being shot despite the shield not covering his legs in the slightest. Obviously they’re not that concerned with keeping him out, if they’ve got these two in front. He kicks the unarmed man in the head and delights in the satisfying thunk, turns to the other.

This guy just cuts his losses and runs, and Bucky rolls his eyes, silently prays to whatever’s out there that _all_ of the bad guys are like this from now on. Maybe the Captain America dress up isn’t so bad. He shoves the door open with his shoulder, hopes like hell no one hears the sound of steel-on-kevlar-covered-steel. The metal arm is a dead giveaway that he’s not Steve Rogers.

The building is deserted.

Well, it’s _silent_, at least, and the corpses suggest that something much more ruthless than Bucky has already been here.

“Fuck,” he mutters when he recognizes the precise way each man has been carved into. He’d been expecting bad guys, a fight, something simple and mindless, not _this_. He reaches up, activates the earpiece under the helmet. “Ronin’s been here.”

Ronin is - a _problem_, at the very least.

At the most he’s a downright nightmare, but that’s only if you ask SHIELD or similar authorities.

Bucky just hopes he’s sticking to his decision not to murder the good guys as well. He walks into the center of the room, looks down at the corpse in the fanciest suit. Doesn’t look too fresh. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on what’s happened here. “Wilson? You there?”

The earpiece crackles ominously for a second, and then there’s a voice, warm and teasing with a hint of an accent that Bucky can’t pin down. It’s not Sam. “Hey there, hot stuff.”

“Who the fuck are you and how did you get this line?”

“I have my ways,” the voice says, amused. “Don’t worry, I’m just enjoying the view, _Captain America._”

Oh, fuck. The way he’d said that wasn’t good. Bucky glances around, can’t see any movement on this floor. He looks up and there’s a space in the center where he can see the other floors, although those appear to be empty too. Doesn’t mean anything. He can tell someone’s watching, probably one of the higher floors where he can’t spot them as easily. Shit.

“Don’t worry, I took care of the ground floor,” the voice continues.

This time he says it out loud. “_Shit._”

Ronin - because that’s who it is, _fuck_, a murderous vigilante has remotely hacked his earpiece - laughs, a warm noise that makes a shiver run down Bucky’s spine. “That’s not very polite, Sergeant Barnes.”

“How did you-” he starts.

“You don’t hold the shield the same way,” comes the slightly smug reply. “It looks less… natural. Your stance is different, and you’re shorter, even with those boots. Also, no offence, but your ass does _not_ fill out the suit the same way.”

“Do you spend all of your time looking at superhero’s asses? I thought you were more interested in murder,” Bucky retorts, tries to stay calm. Ronin is here. Ronin is _here_ and he is insulting Bucky’s _flat_ _ass_, good god, how is this his life? Maybe he stepped into an alternate reality somewhere along the way. It was probably the fucking taxi, considering the way that woman drove.

“I can multitask,” Ronin says breezily. “It’s not like any of these guys were nice to look at.”

“Right,” Bucky says. “What the fuck do you want, exactly?”

There’s a faint crackle through his earpiece and then the sound of metal ringing off of stone. “Yeah, there’s a few guys sneaking up on you behind the green crates. Just dropped down from the first floor. They’ve got explosives and they’re setting up, you might want to prevent that before the whole block gets blown to hell.”

“You- fucking hell,” Bucky grumbles, but he locates the green crates.

Sure enough, there’s a few more black-suited men huddled behind them, along with a distressed-looking woman in a labcoat trying to adjust the timer on her bomb. They’re a little less pathetic than the men that were outside, but Bucky makes quick work of them, knocking them out with the shield. He resolutely does _not_ use his left hand to hit anyone, as much as he’s itching to.

The bomb is attached to a power source so he just yanks out the plug, starts heading up the stairs. If he strains his ears he can hear Ronin breathing, rough but steady. A spray of gunfire has him ducking behind a low wall, preparing to throw the shield once there’s a lull. Ronin offers the thug’s exact positions without the slightest pause, and while the information is useful it’s also _confusing_.

“Why are you _helping_ me?”

“Maybe I’m just a good guy,” Ronin answers with a hint of amusement. “The guy on your three o’clock is trying to sneak up on you, might want to take care of that.”

“You’re not exactly known for team-ups,” Bucky grits out as he slams the shield into the man’s face, uses the brief distraction to steal his gun and throw it aside. God, the temptation to just shoot him in the face. Why _can’t_ Captain America use a gun? “More for the bodies that keep piling up in the morgue.”

“I guess you have a point,” Ronin says thoughtfully. “I do have other hobbies, you know. Like, uh.” A pause. “Guy coming up the stairs behind you.”

“So you don’t have any hobbies except for murderin’ people,” Bucky replies as he’s throwing the shield, lets it bounce off the wall and catches it with his left hand. “Ever thought about therapy?”

Ronin laughs. “Tried that. Didn’t stick.”

“Maybe you weren’t trying hard enough,” Bucky says, wonders what his life has become. Why is he talking to a guy who’s left everyone he’s ever met in a pile of their own blood? This guy’s known for being cutthroat, no mercy for anyone that’s crossed him. It’s just criminals that get slaughtered, but still. Ronin isn’t _safe,_ or friendly. Except that he _is_ being friendly to Bucky, and what’s up with that? And why is Bucky having a conversation _back?_

A heavyset thug catches him on the jaw, knocks him off-balance enough that he throws the shield too wide. It bounces off the opposite wall, and Bucky watches in horror as it bounces up to one of the higher floors, well out of reach. _Fuck_. He ducks under a punch, kicks out the guy’s knee and punches him.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. If he loses the shield he’s a dead man regardless of what happens here. Steve’s too soft to actually get mad at him, but he’ll be _disappointed_ and that’s somehow worse. The guilt will kill Bucky long before anything else.

He gets through a few more bad guys and then one of them appears out of nowhere, levels a shotgun at him. Why do the gods hate Bucky Barnes so much? He doesn’t think he did anything in the thirties or forties that made him deserve the treatment he receives from the world. Bucky takes a step back, realizes there’s no cover he can duck behind in time.

“Think you lost something, buddy,” Ronin says. “Catch.”

There’s a loud, familiar sound of vibranium on concrete and both Bucky and the guy that’s about to shoot him stop, look. It sounds like - but there’s no way.

Bucky raises his hand and catches the shield as it sails perfectly at him, blocks the first shot. The arc is _perfect_, and that’s fucking mind-blowing because _how_. Even Bucky can’t do that kind of downwards arc and he’s been using the shield off and on for a longer than most people have been alive. That’s _insane_.

“Are you some kind of superhuman?”

“What?” Ronin’s laugh sounds incredulous this time. “You think I’m- no, man. Just a regular old human.”

“That was not something a _regular old human_ can do,” Bucky argues, throws the shield straight into the guy’s head. Putting aside the impeccable aim, the shield is unwieldy at best and a disaster at most. For a trained swordsman, the skillset would be entirely different.

“I was a frisbee world champion in college,” Ronin says dryly.

“You’re lying,” Bucky answers, jams the edge of the shield into the elevator’s control panel with a crackle and screech. At least this way no one can sneak past him and get away. There’s only one set of stairs and he’s blocking the way to the ground.

A sigh. “Yeah, I didn’t even finish high school, you got me there.”

“No therapy, no school, no hobbies,” Bucky says. “Kind of concerning, pal.”

“You want to hear something worse? I ran away to the circus as a kid. Was that a cliche before you were frozen?”

“The _circus_. What, were you a sword-swallower or something?”

“Nah. I’m more into making _other_ people swallow my sword,” Ronin says, and the way he says it isn’t slightly dark or concerned, just cheerful. Bucky wonders about his mental state until he realizes it’s a fucking _sexual innuendo,_ not a murder threat, and his face heats up without permission. Okay, yeah, he really wasn’t expecting this today. Is Ronin _flirting_ with him?

Bucky falls into a rhythm with the fighting and he ends up paying more attention to the warm voice in his ear. The thing is, Ronin doesn’t _sound_ like the bloodthirsty maniac that he’s made out to be. He doesn’t shy away from the fact that he’s killed people, but aside from that he’s surprisingly charming, a little sarcastic and genuinely funny, and Bucky kind of _likes_ him. Steve doesn’t talk during fights and neither does Sam, other than trading information or telling Bucky to fuck off.

It’s different, but it’s _nice_.

“Good job, buddy, you got them all,” Ronin says. “Well done.”

Bucky looks down into the face of the unconscious man he’s just smacked with the shield, looks up. He can’t see any figures on the top floor, hostile or otherwise. He's not even sure where the way up there is, to be honest. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Ronin confirms. “Trust me.”

Weirdly enough, Bucky does. At least, with this. He hasn’t steered Bucky wrong this entire time they’ve been here, and he’s been _helping_. It’s weird, sure, very out-of-place, but it’s not a problem in the slightest. Bucky doesn’t enjoy solo ops that much, not since the memories of Hydra keeping him isolated for seventy years started filtering into his mind.

“Alright.” Bucky pauses, feels awkward. “Thanks.”

“Hey, we gotta get rid of these assholes one way or another, right?” The earpiece crackles. “You’re not bad at this, even in a dumb costume.”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky puts the shield on his back. “No one could tell who I was except for you. You got some kind of a Captain America kink?”

It gets him another laugh, and Bucky tries not to soak it in too much. It’s not like he’s going to see the guy ever again. This first time was nothing short of a miracle. “_God_, no. Can you imagine dating the literal embodiment of American perfection? I’d feel like shit the entire time. No one can measure up to that.”

“He leaves his socks everywhere,” Bucky offers. “And he drinks milk out of the carton.”

“Hey, me too,” Ronin says. “Tastes better like that. Maybe superheroes _are_ real people after all.”

Bucky snorts. He’s found a USB which hopefully contains the data he’d been supposed to retrieve in the first place - when Captain America became a spy, he doesn’t know, but Steve’ll be happy. He also snags an interesting-looking laser gun to take back to Stark and hopefully replicate for himself. It’s nice to treat yourself. Especially when you’ve been forced to wear a dumb helmet for the day.

“I’ll see you around,” he says, looks up. There’s nothing there, the same view that he’s seen the last ten times he’s looked for some hint of a figure up there.

“No you won’t,” Ronin answers. It’s very matter-of-fact, the way he says it, and Bucky doesn’t know why he feels disappointed. Why would Ronin _want_ to see someone who’s supposed to arrest him, even with their temporary alliance? Of course they’re not going to have anything to do with one another. “Take care of yourself, alright? Go back to wearing the leather and black. Emo suits you.”

There’s something _off_ about the way he says it, something final, and then the earpiece crackles loudly and Bucky flinches, tucks the USB into his pocket.

“-cky? Bucky, answer me right the fuck _now_ or I’m going to hunt you down and hang your intestines on a-”

“Wilson, calm the hell down,” Bucky says, immediately distracted from his slightly melancholy thoughts. “’m fine.”

“Where the hell were you?”

Bucky starts walking back down the stairs. He ‘accidentally’ steps on a man along the way, manages to keep a straight face and an even voice. Sam’s normally good at picking out lies, but he sounds stressed and panicked, and Bucky’s going to take advantage of that. “The place I was _supposed_ to be. Something went funky with the comms, ‘s probably Stark fiddling with them again.”

“Fucking Stark,” Sam grumbles. “You need backup?”

“Nah, all done,” he says. “Retrieved the data. On my way back now. How’s Steve?”

“He’s tried to escape three times in the last twenty minutes and they don’t have anything strong enough to sedate him,” Sam answers. “Never thought I’d say this, but _please_ come back, Barnes, I’m sick of his shit and I was supposed to have lunch three hours ago.”

It bothers him.

The USB and gun are handed over to their appropriate handlers and then Bucky’s off-duty for the day. He gets back to the private hospital wing Stark keeps in the Tower, throws the Captain America suit on Steve’s face. Steve seems unamused, but mostly because he’s been bedridden for a whole day and he’s going insane. Bucky remembers having to sit on him in their dumpy Brooklyn apartment when he got sick back then, and it was just as harrowing even _without_ the serum.

Either way, wearing normal clothes again is a _revelation_. Bucky’s thinking about proclaiming his love for sweaters out on the balcony for everyone to see.

Sam makes a break for it, after a few muttered insults that could’ve been directed at either of them. He’s very crabby when he’s hungry. Or just all the time, at least when he’s around them. Bucky just flips him the finger and takes his place on the thin mattress by Steve’s knee. Steve looks fine, really - he’s an awful patient, but he heals even faster than Bucky does, so he won’t be here for much longer.

Bucky’s relieved, because he doesn’t even want to be _fake_ Captain America.

“Did it go well?”

“As well as a fight _can_ go,” Bucky says. He’s not- Steve’s got this raw addiction to fighting, some kind of inexplicable need to toss himself into the fray at every opportunity. Bucky just sees it as means to an end. The only things that keep him here are his loyalty to Steve and the faint hope that one day he’ll make up for his past. He’s not Captain America, and if he gets his way, he never will be. “It was fine.”

He doesn’t say anything about Ronin.

“Huh,” Steve answers. “I don’t think you’ll have to do it again, anyway.”

“Good. Because I wouldn’t,” Bucky says. “Do it again.”

“I want the shield back,” Steve says, a little sulkily. Bucky’s glad he’s left it outside of the hospital room, safely hidden away. He’s not aiding Steve’s escape attempts.

One of the nurses comes in and starts fussing with the monitors and IV, and Bucky’s left alone with his thoughts.

His thoughts, traitorous things that they are, immediately shift to Ronin.

It doesn’t make _sense_.

Why had it happened at all?

“You okay, Buck?”

Bucky looks back at Steve. “Has anyone teamed up with Ronin before?”

Steve frowns. “The… vigilante? Not that I know of. Sam and I have been in some of the same places as him, but he always escapes before we can get ahold of him. Not that we’ve tried very hard. Between you and me, as long as he’s on our side, there are bigger problems.”

“Right,” Bucky says. Steve’s let the Punisher escape a few times as well, not that SHIELD know that. Bucky wonders if anyone realizes that Steve isn’t the pure little baby that the media projects him as. Then again, most of the public think Bucky himself was a child in the war because of the comics. Bucky forcibly turns his attention back to the matter at hand. “And has he ever left anyone alive?”

He gets a puzzled look for that. “No. You know that much, Bucky, he’s known for not leaving anyone alive. What’s this about?”

Bucky doesn’t reply.

Sam brings him back a toasted sandwich, which seems like an uncharacteristically sweet gesture until Bucky realizes the only filling in it is cheese and a truly terrible amount of mayonnaise. He eats it anyway, maintains eye contact with Sam the entire time. It tastes awful. Steve just sighs at them, which has become routine by now.

Bucky thinks to himself that Sam was probably worried and he just expresses it through being a complete asshole. Steve _does_ try to escape yet again, but he doesn’t manage to get out of the bed before Bucky’s knocking him back down again. The nurses are extremely pleased with Bucky’s presence because they’re tired of fixing all the things Steve inevitably takes out or breaks with his attempts.

“You staying here tonight?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky says. “You?”

“I _wanted_ to go visit some friends up in DC,” Sam says, arms crossed as he stares straight at Steve, who just looks mutinous. “But I blew that off because _someone_ couldn’t stay in their goddamn bed like a reasonable adult.”

“And he thinks we’re the immature ones,” Bucky says, completely immune to Steve’s frown as Sam switches on the room’s television. “That thing got movies on it?”

“I’m watching the game,” Sam replies.

So Sam watches sports, Steve watches the sports - and presumably plots his escape - and Bucky thinks.

Because sure, the men on the ground floor of the building had been murdered, but the corpses had been there for a _while_ before he’d gotten there. The blood had looked more brown than red. There were men still in the building when Bucky had gotten on the scene, and clearly they’d been there for a while if there were guards posted outside. No one had seemed concerned by the corpses that were already there, either.

Which means they’d been there for a while. Unusual. The cases he’d been on that had involved the guy, Ronin had cleared out and killed everyone before they’d even got there. He was scarily efficient,

Ronin hadn’t made a single move to either escape _or_ finish them off himself - which he could’ve done instead of wasting his time hacking Bucky’s earpiece.

Unless he _couldn’t_ escape or kill them himself.

Bucky thinks about how he’d said _I’ll see you around._ How Ronin had replied with _no you won’t_,__ in a tone that was more resigned than matter-of-fact. Like he’d known for _sure_ that Bucky would never see him again, because Ronin wouldn’t be around to be spotted or spoken to, accidentally or not. Which means that he-

“I need to- I should go see Stark about my arm,” Bucky says suddenly.

Steve frowns, ever the worrier, especially where Tony and Bucky being in the same room is concerned. It’s probably a fair reaction, with their rocky past, but they’re getting over it. Either way, it’s a plausible enough excuse, although Bucky probably ruins it with the way he scrambles to his feet and makes a break for the elevator. It doesn’t matter what they think of him anyway - Steve’s known him since childhood and Sam’s seen him do far worse things than bail out on the hospital hangout.

It’s the first time in his _extremely_ long life that he’s been hoping his instincts are wrong, but the dread pooling in his veins says it’s probably the opposite.

The elevator in Stark Tower is the fastest in the world, barring broken ones that just drop to the ground and kill the people inside. It still doesn’t feel fast enough. Bucky feels like he’s made an egregious mistake, even though there’s no reason for him to be chasing down what is essentially a serial killer in a costume.

Somehow he ends up with the same taxi driver he’d had on the first trip, but the woman doesn’t seem to make any connection between this morning and now.

That costume sure does make a difference, at least. Bucky decides that he vastly prefers the sweater and jeans combination he’s got on right now to Steve’s red, white and blue, hopes that he’s not going to run into any trouble on the way through the building. Or any trouble at all, really, because the various knives in his belt won’t save him if he’s wrong about this. He tips the taxi driver heavily and then steps out of the vehicle, glances around.

The building looks more ominous in the darkness, illuminated only by a single street lamp nearby. Bucky makes sure the driver is gone before he approaches.

He’d never made it to the top floor because Ronin had stopped him, and he’s only now realizing how _suspicious_ that actually is.

Bucky doesn’t call out when he gets inside the front door, glances around but doesn’t hear anything or see anything move. It’s eerily quiet, and in this case that could be a very, very bad thing. His earpiece is still on him, no crackling, just empty silence. The building feels even less welcome than it had when it had been filled with thugs, somehow. 

Smashing the elevator had been a _terrible_ idea. Stairs suck.

It takes him a while to find the way up to the top floor. It's hidden away, sealed behind a secret door that cracks open when Bucky puts pressure onto it. He walks up the stairs silently, bracing himself for a fight. Shit, he should've worn something more secure.

The second door to the top floor is locked. There’s no sound from the other side, either, and Bucky feels a chill down his spine thinking of Ronin’s voice warm in his ear. God, what if he’s wrong? What if he’s right but he’s too late, took too long to piece the clues together? The lock snaps under his left hand and he shoves it open with his shoulder, freezes at the sight in front of him.

Well, he’d been right.

Ronin’s - and it couldn’t be anyone else, full-body black leather and blood-stained sword on the other side of the room - slumped against a wall near the railing, motionless. There’s a hood over his head and a mask on the floor that reminds Bucky of ice-cold veins and orders. The sword is protruding from the throat of a man in a lab coat, pinning the corpse to the wall through sheer force, and an odd-looking assortment of wires and electronics at Ronin’s feet.

“Oh, shit,” Bucky says, a little floored that he’d been right. He stops, takes a minute to look at the shadow of Ronin’s jaw under the hood, the dried blood on his chin.

The heavy chains keeping his feet together and secured to the floor explain why he hadn’t gone anywhere, but worse is the blood smeared all around the concrete where Ronin’s sitting. It’s impossible to tell what’s happened from his spot in the doorway, with the bad lighting and the suit covering ninety percent of Ronin’s body. It’s not good, though, can’t possibly be with that amount of blood.

Ronin doesn’t move. Hell, it doesn’t even look like he’s _breathing_.

Bucky feels sick right down to his bones, but he’s done this before and he’s seen people come back from worse, so he approaches. Kneeling down beside the man means kneeling in the blood and he studiously ignores that, reaches to check for a pulse. Now he’s closer, he comes to the realization that Ronin’s _pretty_, in a rough kind of way, but now’s not the time for that.

The second his fingers touch bare skin he’s nearly smacked by a hand. Definitely not dead, then, Bucky thinks over the frantic thumping of his heart. The blow is barely more than a pat, and he turns his attention back to Ronin’s face to see him looking blearily over Bucky’s shoulder.

“Just me,” he says, doesn’t know whether that’s comforting or not. “Gonna get you out of this, alright?”

Ronin doesn’t answer and Bucky’s fairly sure that he hasn’t even been heard, so he gets a grip on the chains around Ronin’s feet, crushes them under metal fingers with a sound that makes his ears hurt. There’s no flinch from the man in front of him, and Bucky’s scared it’s too late. But if Ronin still made an attempt to smack him away, there’s some sort of alertness there.

“Fucking hell,” he says when he sees the heavy bruising on one ankle. That’s not ideal.

Although Bucky’s stressing about this, the part of his brain that still houses the Winter Soldier mindset is analyzing the situation, automatically checking the extent of the injuries. Multiple lacerations, a few broken fingers, definitely cracked ribs based on the way Ronin's jaw is twitching every time he inhales. It’s hard to tell with all the black leather, but there’s no way he’s stripping the man here.

Maybe concussed as well, because the blood on his face is matted in his hair as well and Bucky can’t even tell what colour it had been originally. It’d explain the dazed, half-focused stare, although that could equally just be blood loss.

It’s a mess, is what it is. Bucky’s not sure how the guy’s still alive or how he’d managed to throw the shield back with all of this going on. His pain threshold must be through the _roof_.

“We’ve gotta get you out of here,” he says helplessly. “Okay?”

And sure, technically he doesn’t owe Ronin anything, but Bucky’s always been kind of morally grey anyway. It’s not like he can stand by and let someone die, regardless of their reputation. He doesn’t want to explore why he’d felt warm inside with a criminal’s snarky comments in his ear while he’d been pretending to be Steve. It’s not about the flirting.

He goes to lift Ronin to his feet and that’s when he gets a reaction, although the struggling is too weak to have any effect. Bucky stops anyway, leans back and watches Ronin as he struggles to speak.

“No hospitals,” as even-toned as he’d been over the earpiece although the pain in his voice is audible now. No one should sound that okay when they clearly _aren’t_, and Bucky realizes he’s been like this the whole time. Who goes to the trouble of hacking someone’s earpiece with broken fingers and life-threatening injuries and _then_ doesn’t ask for help? _Fuck_. He _does_ need a hospital, but.

Bucky supposes he can’t expect the guy to agree to a public space. The authorities would arrest him immediately, and then they’d probably let the wounds get infected and watch him die. Send him off to jail all broken and twisted and then call it a ‘tragic accident’ when his heart stops.

Bucky doesn’t have a lot of faith in the authorities.

“I’ve got a safehouse nearby,” he says instead, because he can't give up just because hospitals are out of the question. “That okay? ‘cause I ain’t leaving you here to die.”

Ronin doesn’t answer him, because Ronin has passed out.

Fuck.

It takes a second to deliberate, but he yanks the sword out of the wall, studiously ignoring the thump of the body hitting the floor. If he leaves it here, there might be questions. Questions that Bucky won’t and can’t answer. There’s a sheath on Ronin’s back he slides it into before he sighs inwardly, tries to heft the man into his arms without causing any more damage.

At least he’s unconscious, so maybe he won’t feel the five flights of stairs on the way down.

Bucky wonders when his life became this much of a trashfire, thinks it must have started when he found a tiny blond idiot trying to fight off a bully while in the midst of an asthma attack.


	2. Chapter 2

“This disappearing act isn’t going to be a regular thing, is it? Please don’t tell me you’ve got yourself a girlfriend, I don’t think Steve can handle only having half of your attention.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Bucky answers flatly.

A pause. “Did someone teach you about fuckbuddies? Because I’m not having the safe sex talk and I don’t want to hear Steve giving it, either. That’s disgusting.”

“I’m not having sex with anyone,” Bucky says. “Shut the fuck up, Wilson. Tell Steve I’ll be back when I’m ready.”

Sam starts to say something else, but Bucky’s already hanging up on him. The rush of delight from the effort is wonderful. He should do that more often, really. Hanging up on Sam Wilson is great.

A girlfriend. What kind of a fucking joke is that? Even if Bucky hadn’t come to the conclusion that he was _extremely_ queer in nineteen-fucking-thirty, the idea of being in a relationship is laughable. He’s not exactly stable enough for one. Although to be fair, Sam had no hope of guessing the _actual_ reason behind Bucky’s disappearance.

There’s a rustle from behind him, just a faint shift of cotton on skin, and Bucky looks down at the blank screen of his phone and thinks about how much _better_ Sam would be at this.

Except Sam would’ve taken the man to a _hospital_, like a responsible human being. Bucky himself is, apparently, not a responsible human being, because he’s spent the whole night putting in stitches and thanking whatever’s out there for his extensive supply of medical supplies. Luckily, the damage hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought it might have been, but it’s still weighing heavy on him. It’s been a long night.

He’s exhausted and there’s someone else’s _blood_ on his fingers and he’d kill a man for a bed, except instead he’s saved a man and said man has been tucked into the only bed in the apartment. Bucky makes some questionable choices sometimes, but at least he _can_ make choices now. If they turn out badly, well, at least he got to make them in the first place.

Bucky turns his head and looks, ignoring the buzz of his phone. It’s just Steve, probably because Sam’s outraged. It’s fine.

He’s more interested in looking at the figure on the bed, taking in the gentle rise and fall of the covers.

Ronin’s alive.

Right now he’s sleeping peacefully with the sheets tucked up to his chin, looking soft around the edges in a way he probably wouldn’t be, were this a normal situation. The black suit is folded neatly over a chair, and he should probably wash it but he needs to just sit down for a minute, take stock of this situation. Ronin’s hair is tangled silky against the pillow, dark gold and dried blood that catches the midday light.

_Fuck, he’s pretty,_ Bucky thinks to himself, tries to ignore how wildly inappropriate that thought is.

_Please wake up or I’m going to lose it,_ is the second thought, which is more appropriate but a little too much.

He’s so fucking tired.

Bucky gets to his feet with some effort, tries not to think about anything but scrubbing the blood off of his hands. Once he starts running the cold water he dunks his face in it instead, tries to shock himself back into alertness. It doesn’t really _work_, and once Bucky starts washing his hands instead the exhaustion surges back over him like a tidal wave.

He wanders back out to the main area of the apartment. It’s just one room, a bolt-hole in case the world gets to be too much for him. Bucky hasn’t used it before. Initially, it had been bought because he could feel the Asset breathing cold on his neck with every step, the threat of taking over and killing everyone too much for him.

It had been a bad time.

The carpet feels oddly comfortable, even though he’s aware it’s had a _lot_ of crap in it over the years. It’s not like he can expect much, buying it from the local mob before he took them out. Probably just tired. Before he’s even registered it he’s dropped to sit on the floor, head resting against the musty-smelling mattress. It’d be so easy to just pass out here, get up again in about ten years.

When he opens his eyes again it’s because there’s a shift of cotton under his cheek.

Normally, he’d be reaching for a weapon at this point.

For some reason, though, the movement doesn’t set off the alarms in his skull, and he blinks his eyes open to see Ronin scrambling around nervously. Bucky sits up and blinks, takes in the faint wince on Ronin’s face even as the man backs up into the wall. It takes a few seconds for Bucky to register the panicked way he’s feeling around on the bed and the sympathy punches through him like it has physical weight.

He remembers being defenseless and disoriented and _scared_, and he’s not willing to let Ronin bust his stitches over it.

The sword’s too far away, so he pulls a knife out of his boot, flips it over so the handle is facing Ronin before he holds it out. It’s one of the nicer ones, with a carefully balanced weight and a dark handle. Ronin blinks at it, then back to Bucky’s face. He still looks a little dazed, but he’s looking Bucky in the eye this time, more sleepy and confused than suffering from severe head trauma.

“Thanks,” Ronin says, barely audible as he takes the knife.

His hand shakes a little under the bandages and the splint means he’s holding it awkwardly, but Bucky ignores that. “You feeling alright?”

That earns him a snort. “I feel like I’ve been run over at least five times by a vindictive ex-girlfriend’s lover with a Scooby Doo monster truck that’s been driving on top of pure cow shit for twenty miles."

“Oddly specific,” Bucky comments. “Not sure I want to know the story behind that.”

“You don’t,” Ronin says, sagging a little bit against the wall. He’s still far too pale to be healthy, and it’s equally worrying and relieving, because at least he’s talking. Bucky retrieves a bottle of water from under the bed, passes it over. Ronin just looks at it like he’s never seen water in his life. Hell, maybe he hasn’t.

Bucky sighs. Maybe one day he’ll meet someone who isn’t awful at taking care of themselves. Ronin’s still doing better than Steve.

“Where are we?”

“Safehouse,” Bucky answers. “There was a one that was two streets closer, but it didn’t have the supplies I needed.”

Ronin seems to think that over for a minute. “That seems excessive, somehow. Two safehouses so close together.”

“I have a lot of safehouses,” Bucky admits.

“Paranoid,” Ronin observes with a raised eyebrow.

“Prepared,” Bucky counters, folds his arms over his chest. Ronin’s still holding onto the knife with a death grip, but he’s looking strained at the edges. Bucky gets the feeling that the only reason he’s still upright is because of the wall propping him up. It’s a surprise he’s even _awake_, let alone holding a conversation. “You want more painkillers?”

“No,” Ronin says. “I should- I should go.”

That’s worrying. Ronin tries to get out of the bed, then, lip caught in his teeth so hard it looks painful. It makes Bucky ache to watch and he’s forced to catch Ronin before he falls off the mattress.

It’s not the most graceful thing he’s ever seen. Ronin’s face ends up pressed into his neck, breath hot on his skin, and Bucky feels the faintest shudder before he gets the man back on the bed properly. It’s not an easy task - Ronin’s not heavy as such but he is bigger than Bucky, and a little difficult to maneuver safely.

“You ain’t getting more than a few meters like this,” Bucky says. “Take the painkillers and lie the fuck down.”

He prepares for an argument, for some sort of complaining, but Ronin just follows his direction with a resigned look on his face. It’s a far cry from the way Steve acts. It’s like all the fight has been drained out from Ronin’s body, and considering his injuries it’s not _surprising_, but it’s still sad to watch. Bucky would feel guilty if it weren’t for his own good. As it is, he forces himself not to. Then Ronin’s sinking back onto the mattress with a faintly-pained sigh, closing his eyes.

There’s a long pause, and then. “Why are you doing this?”

Bucky looks at the purpling bruise under Ronin’s left eye, the dark shadows of his lashes. “Does it matter?”

“I didn’t hack into your earpiece so you would rescue me,” Ronin says, barely audible. “I just. Wanted to make sure they couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. That’s all. I was prepared to die there.”

“Maybe I wasn’t prepared to _let_ you die there,” Bucky mutters. It’s too reminiscent of the Winter Soldier - always the mission, whatever it took, anything else irrelevant. Broken arms, destroyed buildings, the stench of burned flesh in his nose. Everyone is dispensable. “It was unnecessary.”

Ronin doesn’t reply to that. Maybe he doesn’t know how to. Bucky knows, logically, that being a brainwashed assassin for seventy years and _choosing_ to be a murderous vigilante for a few are entirely different situations, but something in him understands. Prioritizing the mission over lives isn’t something he does anymore, though.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just ask for help,” he says.

“Because you’re not _supposed_ to help the bad guys,” Ronin says, in a deliberately patient voice like Bucky’s being the unreasonable one. Asshole. “You’re supposed to let them die, or throw them in The Raft.”

“We got rid of that place,” Bucky answers. “It was fuckin' inhumane. And you’re not. A bad guy, I mean.”

He gets a laugh for that, and there’s a darkness in it that he doesn’t want to explore. Bucky scrambles for a lighter topic of conversation, something that might banish the shadows away. There’s- not a lot, really, because they’ve only spoken _one time_. Most of that had been about fighting, too, although there were a few offhand comments about other things. The only thing that comes to mind that isn't depressing, though, is-

“Is my ass really that flat?”

Ronin laughs and then immediately cuts himself off with a groan of pain. Bucky winces in sympathy. That can’t possibly feel good, even with the wrap on his ribs and the pills. Ronin seems to be less bothered by it than he should, though, because he answers Bucky’s question and his voice is just as even as it had been when he thought he was dying.

“Don’t know, buddy,” he says. “Didn’t get close enough to tell. Maybe you should show me properly and I’ll be able to tell you.”

“Do you just flirt with everyone that saves your life?”

“Only the cute ones with sexy metal arms,” Ronin answers.

“Don’t get too fresh there, pal,” Bucky says, stamps down on the urge to smile. “The most you’re getting out of me right now is some soup.”

“What kind of soup?”

“Canned,” he answers. “I have tomato or chicken and sweet corn. I can add things to it, if you want. There are herbs around here somewhere. They’re probably old now, though.”

“If I keep complimenting you, will you consider upgrading that to a bowl filled with coffee?”

“Not even if you begged me,” Bucky says.

Ronin makes a thoughtful _hrm_ in the back of his throat, and when Bucky looks he’s smiling a little. Even through the butterfly stitches and the bruising, something in Bucky’s heart flutters like it’s trying to escape from his ribs. He breathes deep and keeps it in with some effort, stands up and makes his way to the rows of cans sitting on the bench.

The soup, at least, is not out of date and he picks a can out at random, starts through the motions of putting it into a saucepan and heating it up. Usually they’re eating takeout or one of Tony Stark’s numerous in-Tower catering services. There hasn’t been a lot of time for cooking, even just heating up soup, and something about it is oddly cathartic.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Ronin says, sounding subdued.

“I don’t usually listen to what I should and shouldn’t be doing,” Bucky comments, pulls out a spoon and starts stirring. “Orders don’t mean anything anymore.”

“I guess you’d know all about orders, huh? With those fancy Russian codewords and all.”

Bucky pauses, the ice winding slow up his spine. That’s not- it’s pretty public knowledge, that he’s Bucky Barnes from the war and he fights with Steve now. The knowledge that he’d gone Winter Soldier after_those words_ were spoken was _not_ public knowledge, and completely hidden from everyone except the people that had been involved. Ronin should _not_ know that.

There’s no way he could know about the codewords. It must just be an offhand comment, something that doesn’t mean anything. Bucky’s just being weird.

“Not anymore, I don’t,” he mutters, more to himself than at the man behind him.

There’s no sound from behind him, and Bucky busies himself with finding a bowl and spoon, setting up the food. He still feels cold around the edges from the memory of the Winter Soldier. It’s easier to focus on soup, focus on Ronin, try not to think about the weeks in solitary confinement with nothing but his own mind as they tested and retested and retested the words.

It was probably more stressful for Steve than it was for him, anyway.

“Okay, I’m done. You’re probably gonna need some help because of your fingers, so I thought I could-”

He stops talking when he turns around and realizes Ronin is already asleep again, mouth slack and fingers still loosely gripping the knife. The sunlight is casting stripes of light over his bandage-clad arms, arching around the curves of muscle and black tattoos, and it’s got Bucky thinking about inappropriate words again, like _pretty_ or even _brain-searingly hot,_ in a beaten-up sort of way. The warm feeling bubbles up again without his consent, unwanted and barging its way in anyway.

Bucky’s aware he’s staring a bit too much, and he’s infinitely glad that Ronin isn’t awake to see it. He’s feeling a little ridiculous- it’s like his brain has never seen an attractive man before, and it’s slightly horrifying. He turns away, takes a deep breath and looks at his phone to distract himself.

It has fifteen missed calls and most of them are from Steve. Unsurprising, really. A few are from Sam, and the display messages are outraged enough that Bucky snickers under his breath. He’s going to have to face them soon enough, but for now he’s making sure Ronin doesn’t bust open any stitches with his escape attempts. His gaze slides back over to Ronin’s face and the faint smile on his lips, and whatever nerves he’d felt about the orders comment fizzles into nothing.

He’s going to tell Sam to fuck off first, but then he’s getting more painkillers from the store.

“Bucky,” Steve says, so earnest and supportive that it makes him want to vomit, “if you’ve got someone special then you’re welcome to bring them to the Tower, you know? We’d love to meet her.”

“Fuck _off_, Steve,” he answers, then immediately feels guilty. But not enough to apologize. “It’s not like that. It’s not _anything_ like that.”

It's been a few days.

Steve seems to think that over for a minute. Bucky shifts on his feet, hopes the taxi driver will wait for him and not get impatient. Luckily they’re not on the hospital floor anymore, but Steve’s still not allowed to leave the Tower until he’s been cleared by the doctor. There’s a nurse lurking somewhere around the private Captain America quarters and Bucky doesn’t care to find out where she is. She likes asking about his mental health.

“You’d tell me, right?” And there’s that earnest look again. “If anything was wrong.”

Bucky softens marginally. “Yeah, Steve, I would. ‘s nothing bad, I swear.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Steve calls as he’s leaving, and Bucky’s tempted to fill his boots with wet cement.

He doesn’t, though, because he’s a good friend. And he’s in a hurry.

The taxi has indeed waited for him.

It’s not the woman from before, which is a relief. Instead it’s an older man with a taste for jazz music, and Bucky’s more than happy to listen to that over the pop shit he’s heard before. He’s only been visiting Steve for a few hours and he already feels itchy and distracted. The crawling sensation hasn’t gone away and it’s getting worse. The more he thinks about where he’s going, the more it feels like he’s got beetles under his skin.

It takes a few tries to get the apartment door open, and then his heart misses a beat when he sees the bloodstained sheets. The _empty_ bloodstained sheets.

Well, it’s not surprising, he supposes. His heart still sinks at the thought of Ronin out on the streets, considering he’s nowhere near being recovered. Bucky’s- he’s _invested_ now, and he doesn’t want to put in all that effort and have the guy die anyway, that’s all.

“Hgh,” a voice says, and Bucky looks down to see Ronin on the floor. Oh.

“The fuck are you doing on the carpet?” He kneels down beside the man, carefully gets him upright. Ronin’s grumbling under his breath, but he doesn’t fight it. Bucky sets his hands on firm shoulders, feels the curve of muscle underneath gauze and scars.

There’s a _lot_ of them. It’s probably normal for the lifestyle that Ronin leads and shouldn’t be surprising or interesting in the slightest. Bucky looks down and realizes he’s tracing over a curiously jagged one without meaning to. Ronin seems unbothered by being felt up, and he’s leaning into the touch almost unconsciously.

His eyes are an interesting shade of blue.

“What were you doing on the floor?”

“Oh,” Ronin says, blinks and then smiles lopsidedly. He’s also kind of- messy, half the mohawk flat and the other half sticking in every possible direction. It’s unexpectedly silly-looking and Bucky has to try very hard not to laugh at him. “Turns out walking’s a lot harder than it looks.”

“Sometimes that happens when your ankle is fucked up,” Bucky comments. “How did you manage when you were on your own?”

“I didn’t, really,” Ronin says, and it’s quiet enough that Bucky doesn’t think he was supposed to hear it. He knows logically that Ronin would be alone, doing what he does, but somehow he hasn’t thought about it in depth until now. He’s been here recovering because he doesn’t _have_ other people and he’d been willing to die in a dirty concrete cage.

“Well,” Bucky says. Can’t think of any way to finish that sentence. He’s not _good_ at talking about feelings. “Where were you going, anyway?”

“I wanted to take a piss and rinse out the blood in my hair,” Ronin answers in a very matter-of-fact tone. 

Fair enough. Bucky ignores the little part of him that had been scared Ronin wanted to leave while injured and instead helps him to his feet, supports most of the weight as they make their way to the bathroom. There’s grab bars from the last tenant and the counter is pretty supportive, so Bucky lets him have privacy once he’s sure Ronin isn’t going to fall over. The coffee needs restocking- because of Bucky, mostly, because he’s been trying to get his unexpected house guest to drink water.

The tap runs, and then there’s a steady stream of swearing from the open door.

“You okay?”

He doesn’t barge his way into the bathroom, but he stops what he’s doing and tilts his head. The water stops running and Ronin swears again under his breath, which doesn’t have much of an effect when the only other person in range has super-hearing.

“Fingers are kind of a problem right now,” Ronin says eventually, sounding strained.

“Let me help,” Bucky answers, steps into the bathroom.

Ronin’s managed to get the sink filled with hot water, but that’s as far as he’s gotten. Bucky feels a pang of sympathy, immensely glad that broken fingers only take him a few days to get over. To be fair, he’s also got less breakable fingers, especially on his left. Bucky looks at Ronin’s tired face, the tangle of blood in hair he hadn’t managed to get out the first time, and then back down at the water.

“You’re okay with me helping?” He has to check.

Ronin doesn’t actually say yes, but he does brace himself comfortably on the counter and wait. It’s invitation enough for Bucky to get close, test the water with his right hand before he guides Ronin’s face down towards it. He gets a twitch for his efforts, like Ronin’s thinking about flinching out of the way.

“Normally when people do this they’re trying to drown me,” he comments, and Bucky frowns. “Or get information.”

He says it like it’s something everyone should relate to, like it’s _normal_ to have more people try to murder you than look after you. Bucky _does_ relate but he’s doesn’t want to, doesn’t want Ronin to know what that’s like either. He’s still automatically carding his fingers through wet blond hair, and he looks down at the dark gold shine amongst the reddish of the water.

“I’m not going to drown you,” he says.

“It’d be a little sadistic, saving someone just to drown them in a sink,” Ronin replies, which isn’t quite agreement but Bucky’ll take it. “If you _do_ change your mind, can we go to a nice fountain or something first?”

“Sure, pal,” he agrees, makes sure the tone of his voice lets Ronin know he’s not going to do that at all.

He keeps gently rubbing at the stubborn clumps, cringes a little at the amount of blood that washes out. There’s been worse over the years, but Bucky’s still not a fan of it. Ronin doesn’t seem to pick up on that particular train of thought, and it’s oddly cathartic, washing his someone else’s hair. He’s warm under Bucky’s fingers, and _surely_ this shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does.

Bucky feels like he’s crossing some sort of line but then he realizes Ronin’s relaxing under his hands, pliant and a little _too_ soft even with the strength of the painkillers he’s on. He’s _enjoying_ this. Bucky knows, objectively, that Ronin can’t possibly be any younger than thirty, and the _look_ he gets in his eyes says he’s older than that.

But the way he’s arching into Bucky’s grip makes Bucky think of children who don’t get enough love and alley cats who turn up their nose but still come in for pets because they’re lonely. Maybe Ronin is _his_ alley cat, in some abstract sort of way.

“I think I got it all,” he says and it comes out too soft.

Ronin straightens up and he hasn’t put a shirt on, so Bucky’s subjected to watching droplets of water fall down absurdly muscled shoulders. He nearly fucking swallows his own tongue. Was he this _easy_ before the war or is it just this guy in particular?

“_Fuck_,” Ronin says, and Bucky flinches.

His hands go to his ear and not Bucky, though, and the black device he pulls out is blinking alarmingly. Shit, that better not be a fucking bomb. Bucky’s not into having the other arm blown off. Ronin taps it against the counter a few times, _hard_, and the blinking stops. He tries to fit it back into his ear and drops it, swears again and twists around to face Bucky with some difficulty.

“Can you-?”

Bucky crouches down to pick it up. He’s _fairly_ sure it’s not a bomb, but he gives Ronin a wary look. The look he gets back is half-trepidation and half-amusement, a faint curling of bitten-red lips. He’s not sure what it means, though. Bucky gets up again, holds out the device and lets Ronin take it.

“What is it?”

“It’s not dangerous,” Ronin says, and is he _that_ obvious? He gets it back in his ear and if Bucky didn’t know it was there, he wouldn’t have known. “It’s just. I lost my hearing a while ago.”

“Oh,” Bucky breathes. Doesn’t know what to say. He remembers losing the arm the first time _and_ the second, still wakes up hating the glossy metal arm. He also remembers every time he’d get hurt and Steve would look at him with those big sad eyes and say_I’m sorry, _and Bucky would hate that too, every time. Bucky’s not going to do that to Ronin.

“’s not that bad,” Ronin says, voice full of false cheer. “These don’t even need batteries, and they hardly ever malfunction. ‘s because I used some of the less important wires to hack into your comms”

“Right,” Bucky answers. “And when they _stop_ workin’? You gonna ask someone for help then?”

“I don’t know if anyone’s told you this - it’s a shame to correct someone so pretty, but murderers don’t tend to have a lot of friends, Bucko.”

“I’m a murderer,” Bucky says with a raised eyebrow.

Ronin pokes him in the chest. “Yeah, you’re rolling in friendly interaction, ain’tcha? Socialite of the year. That’s why you’re spending all your time nursing a killer back to health instead of going to bars and parties.”

“You can stop calling yourself names at any time,” Bucky says as he finds a grey hand towel and starts rubbing at the damp strands of hair curling over Ronin’s forehead. He hasn’t had a chance to see it properly styled yet - he hadn’t even looked at it the first night, and since then it’s been more of a haphazard mess than a mohawk. It’s kind of sad, really. Bucky likes his hair.

“It’s all true,” Ronin grumbles. “’s not like I’m lying.”

“Doesn’t make it any nicer to hear,” Bucky reasons. “World’s mean enough as it is. No need for you to help it.”

He pulls the towel off of Ronin’s head and drops it on the counter. Ronin’s still half-braced on the sink, and his hair’s falling over his face. It’s an artful sort of messy, and if it weren’t for the bruises and stitches and injuries, Bucky might have mistaken him for a model. Hell, even _with_ the injuries he could pull off some kind of punk rock daydream.

“That was very thought-provoking, Sergeant Barnes,” Ronin says, dropping into that low teasing voice he’d used when he was talking about Bucky’s ass. “Have any more wisdom to impart, or do you need to ration it out?”

“For a guy who says he ain’t been to school, you sure do have a smart mouth,” Bucky says, his gaze dropping to it without permission. It’s curled up into a wry little smile and Bucky wants to _taste_ it, and fuck, what’s wrong with him?

Ronin sways a little bit on the spot and the moment’s there and gone within a split second. Bucky reaches up to steady him automatically, curls his fingers into the warm skin of Ronin’s biceps. It’s still damp from where his hair’s been dripping. “You need to sit down?”

“Maybe,” he admits, and Bucky sighs before he starts leading him back to the bed, wrapping him up in the blankets so he's warm and covered. 

It’d be wrong to be disappointed.

It’d be horribly, terribly wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

“Not on the floor again, huh,” Bucky comments as he locks the door behind him.

“I didn’t have you here to sweep me off my feet,” Ronin replies, flaps a hand at him. He’s got his gaze on the television that Bucky had plugged in for him, something exploding through the tinny speakers. Bucky drops his jacket on a chair, walks around to the bed so he can see the screen. There’s a German Shepherd barking at a much smaller dog he doesn’t know the breed of, and the subtitles are blinking along the bottom in a mustard yellow.

“For some reason I expected something darker than _Dog Cops,_” he says and earns himself a snort.

“What, like Slasher or some shit? We can’t all be edgy hipsters ninety-nine percent of the time,” comes the answer.

It’s- _true,_ technically he has a point, but all Bucky had known about Ronin before now was black leather, swords and murder. Even _without_ the hooded suit and mask, there’s the mohawk and the tattoos to look at. His whole concept of the man before now was dark and vaguely ominous. What he’s looking at now is pretty much the opposite of that.

Ronin’s wearing a sweater from a go bag Bucky had kept here. It’s the only item of clothing that wasn’t black, a fluffy purple affair whose origins are completely unknown. It’s interesting that it’s what he picked, out of all the black. He looks __soft __like this, even with the cloth stretching a little too tight over his shoulders. Bucky _definitely_ doesn’t want to lick them, not even a little.

“Anyway,” Ronin says with a crooked smile that’s extremely distracting, “Dog Cops is _paw_some.”

“That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” Bucky answers.

“And here I thought you’d be _barking_ with laughter.”

“Please stop.”

“_Fur_ what reason?”

“I’ll stop bringing you food.”

“Aw, no,” Ronin says, the smile breaking out into an easy grin that must hurt with the bruises on his face. “That’s _ruff,_ baby. I thought my puns had _paw_tential. The ladies go _mutts_ for them, and now you’re trying to tell me that you find them re_pug_nant?”

The startled laughter escapes him too fast to stop, mostly because he’s trying very hard not to react to being called _baby._ Fucking hell. He’s not sure anyone’s called him that, _ever,_ and it rattles him. When he looks back at Ronin’s face it’s as soft as the rest of him, the expression so explicitly _fond_ that it makes Bucky feel hot right down to his toes.

“I made the Winter Soldier laugh,” Ronin says with delight written all over him. “I must be hilarious.”

“Don’t give up your day job. You won’t make it as a comedian,” Bucky replies before he remembers what Ronin’s day job _is._

Ronin looks like he’s remembering too, based on the way his smile dims for a second. It’s easy to forget that the man in front of him usually spends his time cutting down the mob, when he’s sitting here in a fluffy sweater, wrapped in a collection of mismatched and hole-ridden blankets. The sword’s still covered in dried blood where it’s leaned up against the wall.

The silence is deafening.

“You said something about food?”

“Oh,” Bucky says. “Yeah. Food.”

The sly smile returns. “You gonna fetch?”

“Start that again and I’ll eat it all in front of you, and you’ll have to just watch.”

He turns around and picks up the bag of hot takeaway food. Pulling out the various cartons distracts him from the look on Ronin’s face, and the things Bucky wants to _do_ about that look. Instead he finds a couple of forks in a drawer and wipes off the dust onto his jeans before passing one over, and then sets the cartons onto the mattress.

“I don’t doubt it. I’m into a little voyeurism, though,” Ronin offers, which doesn’t help Bucky’s situation at all. Bucky watches him shift to the edge of the bed and then rearrange the food to sit on his thighs with some difficulty. The can of beer he’s holding makes a satisfying crack when he pops the tab with his metal hand.

Bucky’s still replaying the voyeurism comment, and that’s why he doesn’t realize sooner that Ronin’s moved over so Bucky can sit on the bed with him.

Oh. He sits down gingerly once he’s got the rest of the food balanced in one hand, and Ronin watches him as he keeps it steady through sheer force of willpower as he sits down. For a minute, he thinks that Ronin might be watching _him,_ even though Bucky’s in a shirt that’s quite possibly older than he is and rain-damp jeans, and then he realizes Ronin’s probably eyeing off the beer.

Coffee’s been allowed now he’s not kissing death, but there’s no way Bucky’s letting him have alcohol with painkillers. “No.”

“But-” Ronin starts, and his voice is more of a whine than anything else. Bucky moves the beer so it’s on the side that Ronin _isn’t_ on. There isn’t any attempt to steal it, though, and he relaxes marginally against the headboard. The bed isn’t large enough for there to be any space between their bodies and Bucky ends up with Ronin pressing a warm line against his hip right down to his foot.

He hopes it’s just natural body warmth and not a fever. It’s hard to tell - the only person that touches him regularly is Steve, and Steve isn’t really a good measure of normal human function, considering he spent his first twenty years with his cheek pressed up against death and then the next sixty or so frozen.

“I don’t think Sergeant Whiskers is actually going to retire,” Ronin comments through a mouthful of food. The words are barely understandable with the amount of rice he’s shoved in his mouth, and Bucky only understands because he happens to glance at the television screen at the right time. “’s a trick to get Captain Fluffy to let her guard down.”

“Wait, you’re tellin’ me this actually has a _plot?”_

The look he gets for that is pure outrage. “It’s got _six seasons,_ Barnes. This show is a fucking cinematic masterpiece. You’ve never watched Dog Cops before?”

“Do I _look_ like I spend my time watching shitty daytime TV?”

“You look like a hipster murder baby,” Ronin says. “Or like. A raccoon, maybe.”

“A _raccoon?”_

“You don’t like raccoons? I think they’re pretty cute. Y’know, with their little hands and the big sad eyes,” he replies. “They’re great.”

Bucky doesn’t know how to reply to that. On one hand, the guy is implying that he thinks Bucky is pretty cute, and on the other hand he’s also comparing him to a goddamn raccoon. It’s not meant to be an insult, he’s pretty sure, but it’s still not really a compliment to be likened to a trash-grabbing rodent. Ronin doesn’t seem to pick up on his dilemma, still shoving food into his mouth like he thinks it’s going to be taken away at any second.

“I don’t have big sad eyes,” Bucky says finally.

“Ever looked in a mirror before? Sometimes I feel like I’ve kicked a puppy,” Ronin says. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s adorable, but that’s too much power for one human being.”

Bucky feels his cheeks flush, hope it isn’t as obvious from an outside perspective. He doesn’t do that. Does he? No, Ronin’s just being an asshole. _Adorable_. What the hell goes on inside this guy’s head, that he thinks Bucky is_adorable?_

“You sure you don’t have brain damage?”

“Fairly sure,” Ronin says after a minute of thought. “But hey, you never know. I could be in a coma and hallucinating everything, including you. I could’ve died in that place and you could be an angel taking the form of Bucky Barnes to make me feel better.”

“If this was the afterlife, I’d be hopin’ for a little more than this apartment. You don’t dream big, do you?”

“It’s not that bad,” Ronin says. “I’ve seen- I’ve _lived_ in a lot worse, trust me. Wait, I shouldn’t have to tell you this. Didn’t you grow up in the Depression?”

“I guess,” Bucky says noncommittally, takes a swig of the beer. This apartment is about the same level of quality as the place he'd shared with Steve back then.

“It feels weird being in fancy places, right? Places like this, at least you don’t have to worry about the sheets being four thousand dollars and spun gold,” he continues, and Bucky snorts. Yeah, he gets that.

It’s why he hates Stark’s Tower - everything feels so upmarket and pristine, and in comparison Bucky’s messy and out of place. Like he doesn’t fit into Steve’s new life or even the world in general, now. Dumpy apartments are definitely more his scene. Ronin bumps his shoulder against Bucky’s comfortably, like he _understands,_ and Bucky leans into it without meaning to. Ronin doesn’t seem to mind, though.

“Okay, well, since you haven’t seen any of this, we’re going back to episode one and I’m teaching you all about the wonder of Dog Cops. Trust me, you won’t regret it,” he says and Bucky can’t help the smile edging onto his face as Ronin starts fiddling with the television remote.

He doesn’t even watch television shows, at all. Bucky’s notorious in the so-called Avengers Tower for avoiding their mandatory movie nights and team bonding. The screen in his room is only ever used for looking at security footage on bad days. The only reason he knows what Dog Cops _is,_ is because the Avengers watch it together every few months. What is he _doing?_

Ronin talks through most of the show and as it turns out, Bucky doesn’t mind that much. It’s- kind of cute, really, watching him get passionate about it. He nearly tips his food onto the sheets, but the hand-waving is funny enough that Bucky doesn’t berate him for it.

“See, Captain Fluffy is a bastard even this early in the show,” he’s saying when Bucky remembers to listen instead of just staring at his face. “Look at the way she’s treating Officer Woof. There’s clues there, is what I’m saying, and it’s an embarrassment that no one picked up on it before season five.”

“Is this what you do with your spare time? Watch Dog Cops?”

There’s a pause. “I mean. I used to. I haven’t really bothered in- a few years, maybe? Man, it’s been a while, hasn’t it. That’s weird to think about.”

Well. That’s an interesting piece of information. Bucky had guessed that Ronin hadn’t always been Ronin, but the way he’d phrased that suggested he had a life before the vigilantism, possibly even a _normal_ life. Bucky can’t quite imagine a white picket fence with a wife and kids but clearly there’d been _something_ before this. He’d mentioned it the first time they met, odd little anecdotes, but nothing that gave Bucky a cohesive idea of who he _was_.

“You never told me what you did at the circus,” he says.

“You remembered that?” Ronin sighs, sounding more amused than displeased. “I was hoping you’d have been too distracted to remember that.”

“I can multitask,” Bucky answers, echoing Ronin’s words from when they first met.

“I’m sure you can,” he says. “No doubt, Bucko. To answer your question, most of the time I danced around in very tight, very glittery spandex. I liked neon purple. Looking back on it now, it was kind of mean to make a kid wear something that obnoxious.”

“I don’t know, you seem pretty obnoxious to me anyway.”

“That’s cold, Sergeant Barnes.” Ronin laughs, though, so it can’t be that bad. Bucky turns his head, looks at the angle of his jaw and the slow-fading bruises across his skin. He’s trying to imagine purple and glitter and spandex stretched across those muscles and it’s not hard to picture, really, but it’s _different_. It was _before_ this, like he’d thought earlier.

“So you were an acrobat or somethin’?”

“Nah. I was an assistant for my first few years,” he says. “Ran around after the Swordsman because I thought it’d be hot, having a sword. Y’know how you’re at that age and you just do whatever you think will get you attention, especially from hot people?”

_People_. Not girls. Interesting. “Not really. I was mostly running around after Steve for most of my childhood. I think. Never really got interested in them unless it was to distract _him_ from whatever harebrained scheme he’d come up with.”

“At least it saved you from doing things you regret?” Ronin shrugs. “If I’d been looking after someone in my teens I wouldn’t have ended up losing my virginity in the acrobat’s safety net.”

“You _what?”_

“It was _terrible,_” Ronin says, talking over Bucky’s incredulous laughter. He sounds like he’s laughing a little bit too, even though he’s still speaking about having __sex _in a net,_ fucking hell. “It kept moving, and _he_ kept moving, and then my fucking arm got stuck in the mesh and I couldn’t get out.”

“Why would you have sex up there to begin with?” He doesn’t say what he’s thinking of saying, which is mostly just _you lost your virginity to a man?_ It might come out wrong, so he avoids that particular train of thought.

“I mean- he was a travelling salesman and I shared a caravan with my brother, so there wasn’t any privacy. He suggested the net, told me no one looks up, and I was young enough that I mostly just cared about getting off, so I agreed. I think he was into getting caught? Maybe?”

“Huh,” Bucky says. “Were you?”

Ronin doesn’t seem to think that’s overstepping a line and Bucky’s extraordinarily relieved when all he does is snort at the question before answering. “Nah, not really. I was pretty into his dick in my ass, though.”

Bucky’s caught in the mental image that whole scene evokes. A younger, _softer_ version of Ronin, minus the map of scars and tattoos and the shadows in his eyes, maybe without the mohawk or the sword or the desire to cut down everyone standing in his way, so eager to get fucked that he agrees to do it in a goddamn safety net. Does he _still_ like it like that? Bucky should definitely not be thinking about that.

“What about you?” Ronin nudges his shoulder. “Now we’re having this weird heart-to-heart. Or do you not remember?”

Bucky’s lips curl into a smile without him meaning to. “The first time, or the first time I actually enjoyed it?”

“We’ve got time for both. What happened the _first_-first time?”

Bucky realizes his beer is empty and thinks about getting another. It might break the moment, though, and he’s enjoying this even with the dismal subject matter. It’s weird because he usually hates conversation. It’s different. Something about Ronin makes him _want_ to talk, makes Bucky want to peel himself right down to the bone and ask him to look at the mess of blood and gore and trauma left behind.

“I was- twenty, twenty-two? She was a nice enough girl,” he says. “Dorothy McDonald. Everyone called her Dot, she leaned into it and started wearing clothes with polka dots on them too. I took her out because I was tryin’ to get Steve to go on a double date instead of squaring off with John down the road.”

Ronin makes a thoughtful noise. It’s an invitation to continue, to delve into this in more detail, and Bucky hasn’t even told Steve about this but he takes a breath and keeps talking.

“I walked her home one night. She asked me if I wanted to come inside and have some tea, that her dad wasn’t home.”

“Ooh, that’s a line,” Ronin comments.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ know that _now,_” Bucky says. “I just wanted some goddamn tea. Didn’t catch on until she was taking off her dress. It was- blue? With those fucking polka dots again.”

“You don’t sound like you wanted it even a little bit. Why didn’t you just…”

“Get outta there?” He sighs. “I should’ve. I just- I realized what she was doing and I went along with it. Didn’t have a reason not to, really. ‘s like you said, everyone my age was obsessed with gettin’ laid and I didn’t. I didn’t want to be _different._”

Bucky remembers it, is the thing. There’s a lot of his past that still feels like it’s been buried deep underground with no hope of recovery, but he remembers that night. She’d had lace trim on her underwear and his tie had gone missing somewhere. It hadn’t been a _bad_ sexual encounter, per say, but he can’t say he enjoyed it with any sort of honesty. He’d just wanted to be normal so badly.

“Aw, baby,” Ronin says, voice filled with understanding as he wraps an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and pulls him a little closer. There’s a sharp little inhale as he does, probably because he’s hurting himself and he shouldn’t be doing that just to comfort Bucky, but Bucky wants it, takes a deep breath and tries to shove the sick dread from the memory away. He doesn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with Ronin calling him _baby_ again on top of that.

“I didn’t have that because everyone’s a slut in the circus, but I’m sorry anyway,” he adds. “No one should have to feel like they have to pretend to be something they’re not.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, and is startled to find that he actually means it.

They just sit there for a while, then. The silence doesn’t feel oppressive or uncomfortable, it’s just there. Peaceful, almost.

“What about the other time? Y’know, the time you liked it?”

“Got a one track mind, don’tcha?”

Ronin snorts. “I was trying to distract _you._”

“Oh.” Bucky takes a deep breath. “There was a guy down at the place where I worked. We fucked in one of the back rooms.” He doesn’t remember that one as well as he does the one with Dot, but he remembers nails digging into his bare hips and the rasp of stubble on his throat. He remembers the insistent curl of heat in his spine and the way he’d felt so turned on that he couldn’t breathe.

“C’mon, details,” Ronin says, pokes him in the thigh. “Why didn’t you go back to his place? Or yours?”

“I shared a bedroom with Steve, and the guy’s wife was home all day,” Bucky answers.

“Oh. _Oh._”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Fucked like a champ, though. Real nice time. Y'know?”

“I do know,” Ronin agrees, but there’s something funny in his voice.

Bucky doesn’t ask.

“Alright,” Bucky says, looks back at the book he’s holding. “Stick the hand face-down.”

“I’ve had broken fingers before,” Ronin says, following the instructions without pause. “I know you’re like a million years old, but I’m not exactly a spring chicken. I’ve been doing this for a long time, Bucko.”

“Then you should know to do exercises, I shouldn’t have to make you,” Bucky reasons, points at him with the metal hand. “Lift your ring finger.”

“Repeat eight to twelve times,” Ronin says before Bucky can read exactly the same thing word-for-word out of the book. Wow. Alright. Truth be told, he’d stolen the thing from the Tower because he’s fairly sure his perception of healing is skewed by the serum, and so is Steve’s. The only normal human he willingly interacts with is Sam, and even that’s a little unwilling. (He doesn’t really _hate_ Sam, but their relationship is built on antagonizing one another.)

“You read this book before?”

“You could say that,” Ronin agrees. “More like someone bought it to prove a point that’s a little like the one you’re trying to make.”

“Yeah? Where are they now? I could use some backup, considering you thought trying to fuck around with a sword after three weeks was a good idea,” Bucky says. It’s weird. Ronin hasn’t mentioned other people at all the whole time he’s been holed up in Bucky’s apartment. He doesn’t act like he’s got people worrying about him somewhere. If he’d had an ally, why would he have been-

“Nah,” Ronin says, and his mouth twists into something colder than Bucky’s ever seen it. “They’re not- it was a lifetime ago. Y’know?”

“I know,” Bucky agrees hesitantly, even though being frozen and brainwashed for seventy years is different to whatever it is that happened to the man sitting across from him. “You done that eight to twelve times yet?”

“It’s fine, Barnes,” Ronin answers. “Like I said, not my first broken fingers. Not even my second or third or tenth time.”

“You sure do get injured a lot,” Bucky says.

Ronin’s got the sleeves of that fluffy purple sweater pushed up to his elbows and the scars lacing up and down his forearms stand out in the afternoon light, along with the black and green of the tattoos. Some of them are easily identifiable - bullet scars are easy enough, as are the ones that have been done with a thin blade, and then there’s others that don’t make any sense, like the S-shaped line running across the back of his right hand.

“It’s a running theme with me,” Ronin says, not quite disagreeing. “It’s not actually on purpose, I swear.”

“I’m glad,” Bucky says, and it comes out too soft, too honest. Too much like _liking_ Ronin, more than he should. He’s not sure what it sounds like to other people, but he gets a curious head tilt and an assessing look for it. Hopefully his face isn’t as obvious as his voice.

“Do you-” Ronin starts and then Bucky’s phone rings. They both jump back guiltily, and Bucky hadn’t even realized they’d both been leaning in towards each other until that moment. The heat in his face is back, and Ronin’s blinking at him like a startled owl. He’d had the hearing aids out for a while this morning, and the sharp screeching of Bucky’s mobile probably isn’t a great way to get back to hearing the world.

“It’s just Sam,” Bucky says. “What were you saying?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ronin answers quickly, and the moment’s broken.

“You sure? Because I-”

His phone chimes again and Bucky’s tempted to toss it directly into a wall. It’d be satisfying, if nothing else. Ronin’s looking off to the side like he’s thinking about trying to steal the alcohol out of the fridge again and Bucky’s willing to let him, now he’s not taking his body weight in painkillers. Just a little bit, though. He drops the book, gets up and finds his phone sitting on a chair. Bucky picks it up and thanks facial recognition because now he doesn’t need to remember a password.

It’s Sam. Of course it is.

“Needed elsewhere, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Stop callin’ me that,” Bucky says. Technically the answer to Ronin’s question is _yes_, because Sam wants to go and check out a suspicious underground bunker and Bucky can’t let him go alone. The minute Steve had been cleared for duty he’d gone off to somewhere in Europe, and for some reason Sam won’t make any other friends to go doing superhero things with. He’d rather bother Bucky instead, and Bucky is too responsible to let the Falcon die on his watch.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Ronin says, and starts in that direction. He’s still limping a little bit and it’s painful to watch but Bucky doesn’t want to go completely overboard, so he just watches.

Bucky’s phone chimes again and he sighs, presses his forehead against a wall. The paintwork is scratchy against his skin and it feels terrible. Technically Ronin doesn’t need his help that much. Hell, he’ll probably be back to swinging his sword and running around in a couple of weeks, but that makes it _worse_. Bucky’s startlingly, _painfully_ aware that time’s running out with Ronin and he doesn’t know why it bothers him so much.

Or he _does_ know, but he doesn’t want to think about it.

It’s dumb. _He’s_ dumb.

Ronin’s humming something tuneless and terrible in the bathroom, and while Bucky isn’t actively listening in he can still hear it loud and clear. Whether it’s actually meant to be a song is unknown. It’s kind of terrible, really, but he likes how unselfconscious the man is. Then again, it might just be because he knows Bucky isn’t going to judge him.

His phone makes another attempt to get his attention and the vibrations make him drop it accidentally. The phone makes a painful-sounding thunk and Bucky cringes as he reaches down to collect it. The seating area in the apartment isn’t particularly spacious, and that’s why when he leans down his shoulder hits the chair with Ronin’s suit on it and knocks it off.

“For fuck’s sake,” Bucky mutters. Can’t _anything_ stay in its place?

He picks up the phone first and shoves it into his pocket, then picks up the pile of black leather. The blood’s been cleaned off and it’s remarkably solid in his hands. It reminds Bucky a little bit of his own suit, although Ronin’s is built more for anonymity with the amount it covers. He folds it again carefully and then sets it back on the chair before he notices the white square on the floor.

That hadn’t been there before.

It’s not Bucky’s, so it must have fallen out of the suit. It’s weird that he hadn’t noticed it before. Bucky crouches down and picks it up curiously, flips it over. A black-and-white photo stares back at him. It’s too clear to be genuinely from that era, but it makes him pause.

There’s a young woman in the photo. She’s wearing a hoodie that’s far too big for her with a target printed on it, the sleeves covering most of her delicate hands. It’s impossible to tell what colour her hair is - it’s not too light and definitely _not_ black, so maybe brown - but it’s falling in soft curls around her face. She’s frowning straight at the camera with an attitude that makes Bucky snort quietly to himself. _He’s_ made that face at photos before too.

She seems familiar, somehow.

“Did you need to buy this much toilet paper, Barnes? That’d be impressive, even for me,” Ronin says from the bathroom, and Bucky nearly drops the picture.

Ronin’s still rambling about the toilet paper as Bucky finds the little pocket hidden on the inside of the coat and tucks the photo back into place. He takes a deep breath. It’s none of his business. He’s still- he wants to know, he’s got a million questions about who this woman is and what her connection is to Ronin. A sister? A friend? A _wife?_ He’s not dumb enough to actually ask Ronin about it, though.

_It’s none of my business,_ he repeats silently.

He walks into the bathroom instead, mentally pushes aside the barrage of questions.

“Your shampoo is more expensive than the sum of everything I own,” Ronin laments. “Why do you need so many different flavours? Or is it scent? It’s probably scents, you don’t eat shampoo.”

“You’re so goddamn weird,” Bucky says, immediately forgetting all his woes, and Ronin grins at him, lopsided and hopelessly charming.


	4. Chapter 4

“Whoever they are, they must be impressive,” Sam says.

Bucky forgets for a minute that he’s supposed to be denying it. “Why?”

They’re in some sort of underground tunnel, dripping water and rusted pipes. It sends off all kinds of warning bells in Bucky’s mind and he doesn’t like it, not a single bit. Sam looks cautious too but he’s the one that insisted they check it out in the first place, and Bucky is definitely going to blame him if the warning bells turn out to be right.

As it is, the place is eerily silent.

It’s both a good thing and a bad thing, because Bucky’s glad for the lack of action but he can’t quite stamp down the sense that there’s something worse. His right hand is clenched tight around his Glock but it doesn’t soothe his crackling nerves. Sam pokes at a drawing on the wall, pulls a face even with the goggles over half of it. Bucky sighs.

“I mean, anyone would be impressive for putting up with you,” Sam says, and Bucky kicks at his ankle. “Ow, fuck off. What I _meant_ was that before now you barely left Steve’s side and you hated talking to anyone that wasn’t him.”

“I’m not some kind of sad puppy, fuck you,” Bucky says. “I left plenty of times. And I talk to people.”

“Calling the Spider-kid names doesn’t count,” Sam counters and Bucky scowls at him.

They continue on in silence for a while as Bucky thinks about that. Sure, he’d been cagey and withdrawn for a while, but after seventy years with Hydra he thinks he’s allowed that. After the anxiety faded to something manageable, he’d just liked Steve and Sam over other people. It wasn’t any deeper than that, whatever Sam thought.

Okay, maybe he’d been a little wary of making friends with people. 

“At first I thought it was just a sex thing and it was hilarious, but whoever this girl is, she’s got you so bad that you’re out with her every single day,” Sam says, shining a light down one corridor. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“They’re something, that’s for sure,” Bucky mutters, more to himself than to Sam. A sex thing. What a fucking joke.

“I think I found something,” Sam says.

Bucky walks over and glances at the abandoned gun. It’s next to a small box of syringes and Bucky feels his eyebrows lift curiously. Straining his ears only returns the sound of more dripping from the pipes. There’s no sign of anyone that might’ve left this behind and Bucky turns around to survey the corridor as Sam crouches down to inspect it closer. This is far too suspicious to be anything good.

“There’s some kind of green shit in them,” Sam says. “You want to try some and see what happens?”

“I’ve had enough of being pumped with drugs,” Bucky replies. “Why don’t you try some? Maybe you’ll grow some real wings. Or it’ll make you less of an asshole.”

“Yeah, that’d be a real novelty for you, wouldn’t it,” Sam mutters. “You’ve got pockets in those pants, right? Here. Give it to Stark when we get back.”

“I’m not your packhorse, Wilson,” Bucky grumbles, but he takes the syringe anyway. The liquid in this one is almost glowing and he grimaces at it before putting it away. Having needles that close is never a comforting thing but not knowing what’s _inside_ the thing is even worse. Sam doesn’t look even slightly sympathetic, the bastard. He leaves the gun where it is and they continue walking in the direction they were headed.

The thing about Bucky is that not knowing things makes him nervous.

The syringe is part of it, but... “Wilson?”

“What?”

Bucky tries not to cringe. He’s making it weird. It’s becoming worryingly evident how much he relies on Steve, because talking about things with Sam is painful. God, why did Steve have to leave the country when Bucky needs to figure this out? Bucky almost wishes that he was still hospitalized. “Nevermind. Don’t worry about it.”

Sam doesn’t quite scowl at him, but it’s a close thing. “Don’t do that shit, Barnes. I’m not going to spend twenty minutes coaxing you into talking about whatever this is. What?”

Somehow Sam’s no-bullshit attitude is comforting, although Bucky wouldn’t ever tell him that. “Fuck you. I don’t know how to say it, I- can you still want to have a relationship with someone even though you don’t really know anything about them?”

“People don’t know anything about models and they still want to sleep with them,” Sam offers after a moment of thought.

_That’s- not really the same thing_. A model isn’t lethal for any reason other than maybe their absurdly high heels. Having a slightly concerning costume to wear can’t really be compared to the worries that Bucky should be having about Ronin. He doesn’t know where the guy came from or why he does what he does. He doesn’t know what the skulls and smoke etched on his skin means, he doesn’t know where all those scars came from. He doesn’t know Ronin’s real name or even how old he is.

Bucky doesn’t know why Ronin knows things that he shouldn’t know, like information about the Asset or the time he’d started mumbling about Tony Stark’s novelty tie collection. He’d been on a lot of painkillers when he’d talked about that, but Bucky had heard him, and- the thing was, Tony _did_ have that. Bucky had nearly set fire to the whole lot when he’d laid eyes upon them.

“I think I’d go full paranoid maniac if I didn’t know anything about a person I was involved with,” Sam says as he’s poking at a dent in the wall. “I would’ve thought you would too.”

“I should be,” Bucky mutters under his breath. Sam doesn’t hear him. It makes _sense_ to be cautious, given the circumstances. Bucky gets nervous over something as small as abandoned corridors. He’s far more paranoid than Sam, definitely more wary in general and hesitant to take risks.

He doesn’t _feel_ like that with Ronin, though.

All the problems are right there.

Hell, they’ve just assumed Ronin is one of the passable vigilantes because he hasn’t attacked or killed any good people, but that doesn’t mean _he_ is good.

Just because he lights up when Bucky cooks him breakfast doesn’t mean he’s safe. Just because he’s weirdly passionate about Dog Cops doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about murder. Just because he knows when Bucky’s had a bad day and starts rambling to fill in the empty spaces doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy. It’s true that Ronin hasn’t actually tried anything close to suspicious, but his whole background means that there’s a high chance he _could_ and it’s stupid and naive for Bucky to think otherwise.

Bucky’s just tempting fate now, isn’t he?

The thing is, when he stops and looks inside himself, he can’t find even the slightest conviction that Ronin’s going to betray him. He _trusts_ the guy, and somehow that’s worse than if he didn’t.

But even worse than the easy companionship is the urge to take it beyond that.

The amount of times Bucky’s spent staring at Ronin’s lips should be illegal. Would it be that bad to just give in and kiss him? Of course it would be. It’d be a fucking _disaster_, but that doesn’t change how much he wants to do it.

“-hey, we haven’t got all day, Barnes. What are you even daydreaming _about?_ Sexy things?”

Bucky blinks at Sam and then scowls. “Fuck off.”

Sam shrugs. “You’re the one zoning out during a mission.”

Bucky glances around and realizes they’re standing in a room that’s more of a closet than anything else. He must’ve walked into it while he was thinking. Sam’s standing in front of him with his arms crossed, clearly displeased. Bucky doesn’t really care about his disapproval and yet it’s still a little embarrassing, getting caught spacing out while he’s supposed to be keeping watch.

“I wasn’t zoning out, I was…”

He trails off, because there’s no excuse for it. There’s a board on the other side of the room and Sam crosses to it to inspect the pieces of paper stuck to it. Bucky holds his gun a little tighter and tries not to look like he’s distracted.

“You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”

“I know,” Bucky answers. “I don’t have to do _shit,_ Wilson, but I’m here, ain’t I?”

Sam pulls a neon yellow sticky note off of the wall. “Don’t try and tell me you don’t want to be somewhere else, making out like a teenager. Oh, yeah, that reminds me - Steve’s probably going to try and give you the safe sex speech when he gets back. Stark showed him a video and now he’s giving condoms out like candy.”

“We haven’t even kissed,” Bucky says before he realizes that’s a terrible thing to tell a guy who’s favourite hobby is to fuck with him.

Surprisingly, Sam doesn’t go for the jugular. It might be because he’s still reading the papers on the wall, but either way Bucky sighs with relief when he doesn’t get more than a slight frown. “Is it like a conservative thing? Saving it for the four hundredth date?”

“No,” Bucky answers. Doesn’t know why. “I just. It’s a bad idea.”

“Lots of things are bad ideas,” Sam says. “Flushing dead fish. Having children. Agreeing to go on a road trip with Captain America because he wants to hunt down his formerly brainwashed BFF, who also kicked you off of a Helicarrier and tried to kill you. Befriending said BFF to the point where he talks about his relationship problems to you instead of Steve.”

“Look, I’m-”

“I’m not complaining,” Sam interrupts. “Well, I _am,_ but it’s not worth your kicked puppy face.”

Right. That’s two people who have said that now. He looked in the mirror the other day and he honestly doesn’t see whatever makes them compare him to a puppy. Mostly because when he looks in the mirror he just starts thinking about whether his hair’s getting too long. Bucky doesn’t want to ask Steve for his opinion because he’s concerned it’ll become three.

“So it looks like they’ve been developing some sort of chemical that stops- something? You read French, you translate.”

Bucky catches the paper that’s lobbed at him, unfolds it carefully. Why in French? It’s true that remembering most of the skills they’d taught him as the Soldier are mildly traumatic - sometimes he still blinks and remembers them testing his recovery times, snapping bone and bitten-off screaming - but being a polyglot isn’t one of them. It’s useful without being violent and Bucky’s absurdly grateful for at least this one thing.

“Looks like they’re- trying to get rid of pain?”

“That doesn’t make sense, Barnes.”

Bucky keeps reading. “No, I mean- the chemicals they’re fucking with, they’re making it so whoever takes it can’t feel pain anymore.” He looks up at Sam, feeling ice-cold in his veins. “If they make an army that can’t _feel_ anything and don’t care about getting hurt-”

“-that’s bad,” Sam finishes. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Bucky repeats. Even as the Asset he’d felt things to some degree, knew when to stop and return to his handlers for maintenance. But that’s because he was valuable to them. These people are planning on using normal soldiers as cannon fodder. They’re all expendable, and if they’re not feeling any pain they won’t stop until they’re dead. Like Sam had said, that’s _bad._

The door behind him slams.

“Tell me that was the goddamn wind,” Sam says.

Bucky tries the handle. It doesn’t budge an inch, and the panic has him pushing at it harder. Too hard, it turns out, as the handle snaps off. _Fuck._ He braces his shoulder, slams into it hard enough that his bones ache but the door doesn’t want to move. Goddamnit. Sam’s right, he’s too distracted and now he’s put them both in danger and they’ll either kill Sam or use him as a guinea pig and Bucky _can’t,_ he should’ve-

“_Barnes,_” Sam snaps.

The tone of his voice suggests he’s been calling for Bucky more than a small amount of time. Bucky takes in a deep breath, holds it, lets it go in a rush. Panicking doesn’t get them out of this shit. He turns around and surveys the room for escape routes. There’s no other doors or windows, just a tiny metal vent, and it’s nowhere near big enough for them to squeeze into. They’re not exactly _small_ men.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“Let me look at the door,” Sam says, nudges him aside. He doesn’t ask about the sudden bout of panic, doesn’t even react beyond a slight downturn of his lips. Bucky’s relieved, watches as Sam pushes at the door himself and then tries to fiddle with the dented metal where the handle had snapped off. “Shit. That’s- that’s not great, Barnes.”

“You think?” Bucky folds his arms across his chest.

“Got any bright ideas for an escape?”

He glances around the room again. Fuck, there’s not even any furniture here, just the notes on the other side of the room. It’s about then that Bucky realizes it’s a _trap,_ probably intendedfor them specifically and they’ve fallen for it. Bucky lets out a heavy sigh and leans up against the wall while he tries not to just bury his face in his hands. Sam seems less distressed by the situation, although that might be because he just has a very good poker face.

Sam gives up on the door and sits across from Bucky on the floor. It’s entirely possible that his calm aura is just a facade, but Bucky’s willing to let him keep it up. _Fake it till you make it,_ or whatever it was Ronin said when they were watching Dog Cops season three.

“No signal down here either,” Sam says. “What’s the point of having Stark upgrade all our shit if it doesn’t work when we get stuck in places and need help?”

“They’ve probably got something that blocks the signal,” Bucky answers.

“Fuck. And I didn’t tell anyone where we were going, so there’s no chance of rescue either.”

“Fuck,” Bucky echoes.

“So, tell me about this guy.”

Bucky blinks at him. “How did you-”

Sam raises an eyebrow. The wing pack has been taken off and he’s leaning on it a little, looking largely unimpressed. Bucky’s considering offering him the little bottle of water he keeps in one pocket, but it’s only been a few hours and there’s no need for dire measures yet. It’s cold down here and Bucky’s pants are damp where he’s been sitting on the concrete. It’s fucking terrible and he’s really hoping that this isn’t how it all ends.

It’d be just his luck, though, wouldn’t it?

“You’re not that subtle, Barnes. You keep avoiding using pronouns,” Sam says. “And you look kind of nauseous every time you see a half-naked girl on billboards and TV. At first I thought you were just a prude, but that’s more Steve’s corner than yours.”

“Steve’s just pretending to be a prude to fuck with everyone,” Bucky answers. He doesn’t know how they haven’t noticed he’s a jerk. Maybe it’s the whole good-and-righteous Captain America stories that they all grew up with. _Bucky_ got to grow up with pulling Steve Rogers out of the trash, listening about why Bobby down the street needed an ass-kicking from a five-foot asthmatic.

“Next you’ll be telling me he’s not a virgin either.”

“He isn’t.” Bucky shrugs. “Why, did he tell you he was?”

“Worse,” Sam replies. “He called sex ‘fondue.’”

“Yeah, he’s fucking with you,” Bucky says. “It’s how he flirts. Thinks he’s smooth, but he doesn’t realize that no one _knows_ he’s fucking with them.”

“Huh,” Sam says. “How ‘bout that.”

There’s a beat of silence as he thinks that over and Bucky silently plots out a time to start shouting at Steve about being an idiot. He’d thought he was done with this crap seventy years ago, but no. He’s quietly hoping that Sam doesn’t _mind_ Steve’s sad attempts at flirting because they’re his only friends and it’d be as awkward as hell for Bucky. Also because he wants them to be _happy,_ but you know.

“You know no one cares if you’re into men, right? It’s not such a big deal anymore, unless you’re a conservative asshole. I’m pretty sure none of the Avengers are straight- I’d say Wanda but I’m not sure if Vision even _has_ a gender.”

“I know you’re not homophobic, Wilson,” Bucky says, a note of frustration in his voice. “Shut up, it’s- it ain’t that.”

It’s more complicated than Sam’s thinking. Which is understandable - Sam can’t know that he keeps gravitating towards someone that’s not just a man and a person that makes Bucky laugh but a _threat._ Or at least, Ronin should _feel_ like a threat. Bucky doesn’t even know what he thinks of the Avengers, though he seems to know a lot of their classified information.

Bucky shouldn’t keep subconsciously leaning in with the desire to taste the grin on his face and he definitely shouldn’t be struggling to go back to the Tower every night. He tries not to think about the times he’s fallen asleep at the apartment and woken up close enough to count the smattering of freckles across Ronin’s face and shoulders.

“If it feels right, it feels right,” Sam says with a shrug. “You’re thinking too hard about it. I can almost see the smoke coming out of your ears.”

“I don’t know if I _can_ stop thinkin’ too hard about it,” Bucky admits.

And yeah, he’s thinking about all the bad things that could happen, but he’s also thinking about drops of water sliding down a muscled back, and about following them with his mouth. He’s thinking about Ronin kissing him hard and fast, ruthlessly efficient the way he uses that sword. He’s thinking about whether Ronin would like metal fingers around his length, whether he’d be allowed to tease.

He just. He _wants._

“You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Bucky looks up, glances around. He doesn’t catch it at first, and then he realizes there’s a faint hissing on the edges of his hearing. Sam’s standing up and putting the wing pack back on, looking towards the door warily. It’s not coming from that way, though, and Bucky turns his stare towards the other side to see a faint white gas coming from the small vent.

“Ah, shit,” Sam says, resigned. “You feeling okay?”

“Fine,” Bucky returns. He’s inhaling the gas, he must be by now if it’s been doing that the whole time, but it’s not doing anything to him yet. Maybe it’s one of those delayed reaction ones and he’s going to start bleeding from his eyes and nose soon.

It’s weird, how all the regrets start pouring in when there’s a chance you won’t make it.

“Slight problem,” Sam says and Bucky turns back to him as he sways on his feet. Shit. “I’m not. Feeling fine.”

“_Fuck,_” Bucky spits as he realizes it’s just the serum keeping him steady - the serum that _Sam_ doesn’t have. “Pull your shirt over your face, try and filter some of it out.”

Sam does _try,_ Bucky’ll give him that, but he’s off-balance already and clumsy with whatever’s in the gas. Bucky gets to his feet just in time to stop Sam from sliding back down to the floor, gets his arms around him and pulls him back up. Shit, that’s not good. That’s _really_ not good, he can’t just let Sam die in this concrete box in the ground, fuck. He pulls Sam’s shirt up over his nose, ignores the disgruntled noise he gets for doing it.

“Stop complaining, ‘m trying to _help,_ Wilson.”

Sam mumbles something that sounds a lot like _fuck you, Barnes. _It’s more comforting than Bucky cares to admit. He pushes Sam so he’s braced up against the wall and then strips off his jacket to jam it haphazardly against the vent. It probably doesn’t help much, but it’s the best he can do. He glances back at Sam and feels colder than he’s felt in a long time, watching his eyes close. God_damnit,_ this is all his fault, he should’ve paid attention, he should’ve stopped talking ab-

The door creaks.

To be correct, something on the other side hits the door with a thump and _causes_ the door to creak.

“Shit,” Bucky says, braces himself as he hears a sharp cry and then it gets cut off with a gurgle. Sam doesn’t seem to have heard it, unsurprisingly. Bucky has to catch him again as he lists sideways, tries to get his gun out of its holster one-handed. If they decide to try and attack now, they’ve got the advantage because Sam is fucking _difficult_ to hold onto and Bucky’s fairly sure he doesn’t even have his eyes open.

He gets his fingers around the Glock’s handle and points it at the door. There’s no more sound, though, not even a creak, and Bucky’s unsettled as hell but he’s also noticed that the door is open a sliver, casting a dim line of light across the wall.

“Wilson? Sam, I need you to stay alert,” he mutters, smacks Sam’s fingers with his gun when they move. “Don’t get your fuckin’ gun out, you’ll probably shoot one of us in the foot with it.”

Bucky manages to get ahold of the door with the toe of his boot as he positions Sam against the wall where he won’t get hit by any stray shots. It leaves it him more room as he shoves the door open roughly and pushes into the now-open doorway, gun at the ready.

A dark shape launches at him and he dodges out of the way easily, sees the glint of steel and grabs a leather-clad wrist on reflex, the adrenaline rushing through him. He twists and slams them back into the brick wall, pins them there hard enough that it knocks out a quietly wounded noise. Their weapon drops to the concrete with a clatter and ring of steel and Bucky blinks, the world reorienting itself for a split second.

It’s then that he realizes he’s nose-to-nose with familiar freckles and wide blue eyes, blond hair wet and slicked back against his head.

“Hey there, Bucko,” Ronin greets, a little breathless-sounding.

“What are you _doing_ here,” Bucky hisses. Ronin’s dressed in the leather suit again, black and gold barely visible in the dim lighting. The hood’s pushed down and there’s no sign of the mask, but he’s here, shadows under his eyes and smiling at Bucky like he’s not being threatened within an inch of his life. Bucky’s pressed so close that he could probably count each individual eyelash if he wanted to.

“I got rid of the guard,” Ronin says.

Bucky looks down at the motionless woman on the ground, the slash across her throat and the dark blood pooling underneath her. Huh. So he did. Bucky looks back at Ronin and as he does, his nose brushes against Ronin’s face.

It’s not- it’s not a significant touch, not really. Bucky’s done a lot worse before and usually on purpose, for some reason or another. Accidentally touching someone’s _chin_ shouldn’t be a big deal, but it has the added effect of making Bucky realize exactly how compromising their position is right now. He’s still pinning Ronin up against the wall, his fingers keeping Ronin’s hand pressed into the brickwork. They’re pressed up tight from chest to knees, so close that Bucky can physically _feel_ Ronin breathing.

Ronin’s breath smells like the cheap mint toothpaste that’s kept at the apartment and he’s. Surprisingly warm. Bucky can tell the __exact __moment he realizes how close they are because he’s close enough to hear the sharp intake of breath, the widening of his pupils. His eyes flick down to Ronin’s parted lips, and it’d be so _easy_ to lean in the scant few inches and just-

“The, uh. Your friend,” Ronin says, voice rough. “You should.”

“I should,” Bucky echoes. He doesn’t move. The door is wide open, there's fresh air. Ronin’s here. He’s _here_ and he’s come to rescue them like he’d known about Bucky’s misgivings on his loyalties and arrived to destroy them.

_How_ is he here? “You knew where we were.”

“I may have planted a bug on you just in case,” Ronin admits. “It’s under that metal plate on your index finger that keeps bugging you.”

The fact that he’s even noticed that at all is mind-blowing. It’s weird to think that the whole time Ronin’s rambling about shows or singing in the shower or doing some other odd, completely harmless thing, he’s paying _attention_. He falls down and makes bad puns and he’s got a new bruise on his cheek from accidentally walking into a shelf, but he’s somehow managed to notice something that even _Tony,_ who works on his arm, hasn’t figured out.

Bucky definitely shouldn’t be turned on by it.

Shit. Sam.

He lets go, steps back like Ronin’s going to burn him if he keeps touching. It feels a little bit like he _might_ get burned, as illogical as the idea is. As much as they’ve spent a too-short month in each other’s company, Bucky hasn’t actually seen the man in action, and even _looking_ at him in the black and gold is strange. Ronin doesn’t move for a few long seconds, keeping his arm up against the wall where Bucky had been holding it.

Bucky feels the nerves claw their way into his chest, scrambles for something to do to break the tension bubbling between them. He sees the dim shine of metal on the ground and crouches down to pick up the knife he’d made Ronin drop. It’s muscle memory that has him flipping it so the handle’s facing Ronin, and then he blinks at the familiar weight, the design on the handle.

“You kept it,” Bucky says softly.

“It’s a cute little memento,” Ronin answers with a barely-there smile as he takes it back. “Why have roses or chocolate when you can have a knife, right? You’re a charmer, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Bucky,” he corrects, and Ronin’s smile gets a little more genuine.

“Sure thing, Sergeant Barnes,” he says, soft and teasing, and Bucky has to physically hold himself back from- something. He’s not really sure _what_ he wants to do. There’s a lot of feelings he has about this and Ronin and they’re hard to sort from one another.

“You should probably get your buddy outside. I set off an alert, so your other friends will be here soon,” Ronin adds. “I don’t know what that shit was they were pumping in there - fairly sure it wasn’t lethal, though, because they like experimenting on people who are alive.”

Hang on. “You- you know about that?”

The smile’s still there, but it looks brittle now. “What’d you think they were doing when you found me?”

The pieces connect. Ronin’s calm demeanor the first time, smooth voice over the earpiece even as the blood spread. The perfect throwing of the shield even with a few fractured fingers. None of his injuries would have mattered if he couldn’t _feel_ them. And the injuries - shit, they’d probably been torturing him on purpose while using him as their goddamn guinea pig. Something in Bucky’s chest wrenches _hard_ and the oxygen disappears from the room for a second.

“Hey, Buck? Hey. You gotta get out of here.”

“I just,” Bucky says, a little desperate-sounding but there’s nothing else he can say that properly communicates how he feels about all of this. He can’t do any better than that, and Ronin pushes off of the wall, presses his hands into Bucky’s shoulders. It shouldn’t help the anxiety but something about the warm pressure takes off some of the weight in his chest. Then he realizes what Ronin’s said. “You’re coming with us, right?”

Ronin looks- wistful, almost. “I can’t. I’ve already- it’s a risk being here at all.”

“The vigilante shit doesn’t matter,” Bucky argues. “No one cares. If they’ve been experimenting on you then you should come with me to Banner so you don’t fucking die from whatever chemicals are in your body. Fucking _hell,_ why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Because I’m not going anywhere near the Avengers,” Ronin says, and there’s something dark in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “I’ve probably already tipped them off.”

“But I-”

“Aw, Buck, not the puppy eyes again.” Ronin’s hands slide up his shoulders, fingertips pressing into Bucky’s jaw. “It’s fine. _I’m_ fine, thanks to you. Now go do your hero thing, baby. I’ll see you around.”

Bucky can’t quite make himself look away and he ends up staring at Ronin’s back right up until he disappears around a corner. He's still putting more weight on his right side. Bucky watches. And then he stares a little more, because the hollow feeling in his chest doesn’t seem to want to disappear anytime soon.

It feels so anticlimactic, for a farewell.

And Ronin had fucking called him _baby_ again.


	5. Chapter 5

“He’ll be fine,” Tony says as he walks out of Sam’s bedroom. “It was just some kind of knockout gas, our Bird Boy will be up and about once he’s slept it off.”

Bucky makes the effort to look up from his clasped hands. The chair he’s sitting on is plastic and the ridges are digging uncomfortably into his ass. He’s been sitting in the same spot without moving an inch for hours. None of that really matters, though, not in the end. A little discomfort is okay considering that he’d dropped the ball on this mission. He feels nauseous still. Fuck, they could’ve _experimented_ on Sam if it wasn’t for-

“Banner’s watching him just in case, though. How did you set off the old Avengers Alert signal, anyway? We changed off of that frequency months before you and Wilson joined the club,” Tony asks. 

“Dumb luck,” Bucky says blandly.

“Huh. Interesting sort of dumb luck, there.”

“Yeah,” Bucky answers flatly. “Interesting.”

“You sure you weren’t skulking around here when your brain was in the dishwasher?”

Bucky doesn’t react. It’s not meant to be an attack, he reminds himself. It’s just how Stark gets sometimes, especially when he’s found something he wants to solve. It’s good that he just thinks Bucky was hanging around here as the Soldier, though- at least that’s something plausible. Bucky hadn’t come up with an excuse yet because he’s still feeling shaky and distracted on the inside.

“Maybe I was,” he says noncommittally. “Maybe you need to upgrade your security.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Tony replies, pressing a hand to his face. “You tell me _now._ Do you know how many hours I spend on trying to keep you all safe, and now you’re telling me I have to do _more?_ I’d make one of you do it if I thought you could do anything beyond punching things and being assholes to everyone.”

Bucky feels sorry for him, a little bit. He _is_ trying, after all. “I can help. Not the computer shit, but I can find the places that need more security. If you want.”

Tony looks puzzled for a minute. Bucky considers making a run for it, but he’d been sitting here this whole time so he could check on Sam personally and he’s not giving up on that just because this is so awkward that he wants to hide for the rest of the week. Instead he tries to get a little more comfortable in his plastic seat, ignores Tony’s fiddling.

“We went down there after you guys were sent to medical,” Tony adds and Bucky keeps his expression carefully blank even with the contemplative look on Tony’s face. “What happened, Terminator? You went a little Michael Myers on them. Couldn’t even find a live one.”

“I didn’t know if Sam was dying or not,” Bucky answers. “You tellin’ me you wouldn’t panic if Rhodes was locked away getting gassed?”

Tony looks away from him, crossing his arms a little more tightly over his AC/DC shirt. He looks like he’s remembering something bad. Bucky’s hit a nerve there, which was exactly his intention in the first place. If Tony’s distracted by thinking about Rhodes, he’s not going to ask the questions that Bucky refuses to answer. And Bucky isn’t going to tell them that he’d had backup.

As much as it makes him feel unsettled right down to his bones, he’s not going to snitch. Whatever Ronin’s problem with the Avengers is, it doesn’t matter. Or it _does,_ but not to the point where he’s going to tell everyone about it. God, he’s really fucking compromised, isn’t he?

“Steve’s coming back tonight,” Tony says. “You want to be the one to tell him that Wilson got downed?”

“No,” Bucky answers immediately, and he doesn’t quite get a smile _but_ there’s a glint of amusement there. “You tell him.”

“Okay,” Tony agrees easily. “Maximoff’s making Sokovian food tonight, you coming?”

“Think I’ll skip it,” Bucky says, looks back down at his hands. There’s no blood on them. He’d been in the bathroom earlier, had pried open the plate that was bothering him to find the nearly-invisible tracker sitting on the inside of the metal. He’d left it there, too, which made him wonder if he subconsciously wanted to get into trouble again in the hopes that _he’d_ show up. Bucky doesn’t know how he ever passed SHIELD’s psych assessment. Steve probably rigged it.

“Got plans already? Look at you, being normal,” Tony says. “See you later, then, Terminator.

Bucky doesn’t have plans, not technically, but he knows exactly what he’s going to be doing tonight.

The apartment feels colder, somehow.

It’s silent, and Bucky ends up standing in the doorway for longer than is strictly necessary. The cold doesn’t matter. It’s dark out here, the only light coming from the street lamps that are right on the brink of death. His boots feel too heavy to take the next step, and he blinks and is suddenly aware that the old guy in the apartment above him is throwing up over the railing. Bucky can’t find it in himself to care about the vomiting, but he doesn’t want the man to notice him standing here.

He gets to the kitchen before he manages to sit down. Here, he’s allowed to show weakness and not have any of the Avengers breathing down his neck, so it’s easier to just cover his face with his hands while he breathes. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t even breathe any shakier but it’s still there on the inside, small and cold.

It’s weird, missing someone like this.

He’s- he’s _worried,_ more than anything. Bucky doesn’t have any answers, and he doesn’t have any clues that make sense, and none of it really matters anyway. Fuck, what did he do with his life before Ronin? It shouldn’t feel so wrong. It’s been like a month since the guy hacked into his earpiece, there’s no reason he should be this unsettled. Except there is, because Ronin had just saved his and Sam’s life and disappeared into the shadows like he’d never been there.

Hell, what if Bucky’s hallucinated the whole thing?

“Fuck,” he says to himself, and the room doesn’t echo but it feels like it should with how empty it feels.

The bathroom door creaks.

Bucky jumps up and knocks his chair against the counter with a clatter, grabbing for the knife in his pocket. There’s not one there because he’d moved it to his boot, because he’d given that one to the man standing in the bathroom doorway while scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. The adrenaline rises and then falls and then rises again as he registers that Ronin’s _here_ in front of him.

“You came back,” he says, sounds a little too shocked to his own ears.

“Was kind of hoping for a proper goodbye,” Ronin answers in a subdued tone.

He’s clearly not planning on staying, dressed in the suit he hasn’t worn for the last month, and somehow even with the black leather and gold accents Bucky can’t see anyone but the guy who forced him to watch The Mummy movies at three in the morning and then talked over most of it. He doesn’t see a killer, even if that’s hard to look past with the suit on.

“Your friend’s okay, yeah?”

“He’s fine, but that’s because he didn’t get fucking _experimented on,_” Bucky retorts, watches Ronin flinch a little. He still smiles at Bucky, even though it looks helplessly weak and washed-out on his face.

“It wore off after a few days anyway,” Ronin offers.

There’s nothing in his expression that suggests he’s even slightly bothered by having been a lab rat. Bucky’s seen that look once before- on his own face, _before_ he’d been reunited with Steve, and that’s a truly horrifying comparison. The worst part is that Ronin isn’t even brainwashed and he just genuinely doesn’t seem to _care_ about it. Bucky wants to shake him. He wants to slap him. He wants to roll him up in a blanket and snarl at anything that comes close enough to hurt.

“What the fuck _happened_ to you?”

Bucky’s not expecting a proper answer, not really, and that’s why he feels a little guilty when he sees a million different emotions travel across Ronin’s face in the space of a few seconds. Then he just looks _pained,_ and Bucky doesn’t feel good about that either.

“Bad things happen,” he says. “It’s kind of my life story.”

“Maybe it’s because you won’t let people _help,_” Bucky bites out.

“Maybe it’s because I expect people to help and then it turns out that I’m not worth it,” Ronin answers tiredly and then immediately looks like he regrets it. Bucky doesn’t like any of this, but he especially doesn’t like the implications of saying _I’m not worth it_ over _they let me down._

“I’d help,” he says, honest and raw. “Anything you want.”

That earns him a laugh. It’s soft and a little sad-sounding but ultimately more reassuring than most of this conversation has been. “You’re a weird one, you know that, Sergeant Barnes?”

“I mean it,” Bucky insists.

“I know you do,” Ronin agrees. “That’s why I’m not taking you up on it. I can’t- I’m not someone who you should be offering that to. Especially because I can’t give you any of the answers you want from me.”

_Can’t or won’t?_ Bucky doesn’t say it out loud because he thinks he already knows the answer. “So you’re just going to- go? Where?”

“Maybe Tokyo,” he says. Tokyo. All of the things that have happened in the last month, and Ronin’s going to just go to fucking Japan. Nevermind that Bucky would be doing exactly the same thing in his position, it’s still making Bucky feel like there’s worms curling in his gut. What if he doesn’t come back at all? What if Bucky never sees him again after this? He’s certainly not planning to be on the other side of the world anytime soon.

He feels like there’s a million things trying to push their way out of his mouth, but they’re all extraordinarily selfish so what he _actually_ says is “I hope you find what you’re looking for there.”

Ronin’s answering smile is nearly as complicated as Bucky feels. He finally moves from his spot in front of the bathroom. Bucky watches as he makes a wide berth to get to the sword sitting on the counter. It’s the only thing gleaming in the moonlight from the windows, quiet and deadly. It’s a hard reminder that while Ronin is sometimes soft and comforting and funny, he’s also _this,_ possibly more than the other things. “Probably not. But- thanks. For everything.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. Lets it go. “Alright,” he says. “I guess I’ll- see you around?”

“No, you won’t,” Ronin corrects quietly.

It’s the same thing he’d said the first time they’d met. It’s no less unsettling this time around, either. Ronin’s sword slides into the sheath on his back with barely a rustle and Bucky catches his knife one-handed when it’s tossed to him. Both that and the other one get tucked away without Bucky looking away from Ronin. He’s had weeks to look but he’s still helplessly trying to memorize the mess of blond mohawk, the bump on his nose, the soft curve of his lips.

“Don’t let them stuff you back in the Captain America suit,” Ronin adds as he opens the window, places one boot on the fire escape.

“I’m not planning on it,” Bucky says.

Ronin offers him a smile, gets onto the fire escape properly. He’d blend seamlessly into the night if it wasn’t for Bucky’s superhuman eyesight. Ronin tips his head up, looks up at the sky with the moonlight casting silver across his face. Bucky takes a couple of steps forward, stops. He realizes, then, that he’s going to let this happen.

He’s going to let Ronin go.

“Wait,” he blurts out and Ronin looks at him. “Can you- what’s your real name?”

“You don’t already-” Ronin starts, then shakes his head, laughs quietly to himself. “It’s Clint.”

Then he’s gone.

“Clint,” Bucky repeats in the sudden coldness of the apartment. It settles somewhere deep in his chest, radiates a feeling he can’t quite put a name to. It’s- not enough, really, but it’s _something_. More than he’d hoped for, if he’s honest, and the insistent regret that’s nudging at him isn’t _fair_. He’d known this would happen from the very start.

It’s stupid to miss him already, stupid to think this would end any other way than this.

He turns away from the window. Maybe Wanda will still have some food left for him- they’re not _exactly_ friends but sometimes she’ll sit on the roof with him on a bad day, and they’ll watch the city together in silence. Maybe she’d let him sit in a corner and not talk about why he feels bad. That’d be nice.

How is it okay, that he can feel this much?

The window rattles and as Bucky turns back around he’s being backed up against a wall. It’s a strange parallel to yesterday with their positions reversed, and he gets a split second to take in the frantic glint in those blue eyes before he’s being kissed within an inch of his life. It’s rough and wet and desperate and absolutely fucking _perfect_.

“I’m sorry,” he says, right up against Bucky’s mouth. “’m sorry, I couldn’t just _leave_ without-”

He doesn't care. He doesn't care about Clint's past or his problems or what he does in his day job. It all seems so fucking _insignificant_ over the feel of Clint pushing him into the wall, hard and edged with desperation.

Bucky just gets his hands on leather and steel, bites hard enough to earn himself a breathy little gasp. It’s gorgeous, fucking _devastating_ after weeks of talking and flirting and doing absolutely nothing. His mouth is the kind of thing that those uppity critics in the news should be raving about, and the only reason Bucky doesn’t swear out loud is because he’s not wasting a single second of this. Ronin’s- _Clint’s_ gloved hands are on his hips, not pushing him into the wall but holding onto him anyway, all firm and careful.

Whatever was building up in his chest when he learned Clint’s name is growing in size and strength, nearly choking him with how badly he wants to get his hands on bare skin and _not_ have it be for a practical reason like stitches. The leather is warm under his fingers but it’s not enough, nowhere near enough now the floodgates are open. It feels like they’ve been building up to this the whole time and now they have to shove all those missed minutes into the present.

Clint backs up a step, wide-eyed and messy-haired, but Bucky’s not willing to let him go now and he clenches his hands in the suit, tugs him back in with ease. It wouldn’t be that easy if Clint didn’t want it and that’s a thrill all in itself. Bucky switches their positions easily - he suspects it's only easy because Clint _lets_ him do it - and shoves in close again, kisses him again. 

He’s not _entirely_ gentle and Clint makes a noise against his lips, soft and heart-wrenching and Bucky wants him so bad he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He should’ve known, really, that the minute he got his hands on Clint properly he wouldn’t be able to control himself, but the reality of it is stunning. Bucky doesn’t even think he could stop if Steve showed up and tried to beat him away with the shield.

"This is a fucking terrible idea," Clint breathes. 

Bucky pulls back enough to see his flushed face properly, blinks at him. He'd seemed pretty enthusiastic, but. "You wanna stop?" 

The laugh he gets for that sounds both resigned and a little hysterical. "No, I don't. I really fucking don't, Bucky."

"Good," he says.

With that confirmed, he leans back in to claim Clint’s mouth- there’s probably a more eloquent way to put it, but it certainly _feels_ like he’s taking ownership. Clint’s doing the same thing to him, fingers clenching sporadically over the worn-soft denim of Bucky’s jeans. Bucky’s holding onto him so hard it has to hurt but the noises Clint’s making are undoubtedly positive. His hips jerk into Bucky’s for a second and even through the layers he can tell Clint’s hard.

_Bucky’s_ done that. It’s because of him. Fucking hell, that’s a rush. It settles somewhere in his gut, low and sizzling hot, and Bucky needs more.

Bucky slides down to his knees carefully and the bitten-off moan Clint makes when he realizes what’s happening is gorgeous. It seems fair, somehow, that the universe lets him have this. All the shit he's been through, he deserves something good, something that's just his. He deserves this and yeah, maybe he’s going too fast, but it’s not like he’s going to see Clint again after this.

(Maybe if he makes it good enough, Clint might stay.)

The leather pants are easy enough to unfasten- Bucky’s too single-minded to bother with the rest of the suit. He gets the material a few inches down around Clint’s thighs, just enough to free the painful-looking hard-on he’s sporting, then silently raises an eyebrow when he realizes Clint isn’t wearing any underwear. He doesn’t want to admit it gets him a little hot under the collar.

“I was in a hurry,” he says, and Bucky snorts.

Technically he’s seen this dick before, assisting with showers and medical aid, but there’s never been an opportunity to just _look_. It’s thick and Bucky doesn’t know what words the modern world uses for describing nice dicks, he just _likes_ it. What he likes more than that, though, is getting his mouth on it. He leans in and drags his tongue up the head, barely a taste, feeling tight and hot in his skin.

Blowjobs aren’t something he does often, but he remembers what to do, how to make it good. The noises Clint makes just encourages him further, have Bucky making it as wet and dirty as he can. He uses his right hand to push the front of the jacket out of the way completely, gets the left on Clint’s ass and squeezes.

“Fuck,” he hears above him, and the hot satisfaction hits him like a brick wall. Screw the increasing discomfort in his own jeans, he wants _this_. He wants to peel Clint apart in the good kind of way, make sure this is burned right into his skull.

Fingers land in his hair, comb through it more gently than Bucky’d expect. It’s almost reverent, even as Clint moans loud enough that the guy upstairs bangs on the floor. Bucky ignores the noise and takes him down further, far enough that his eyes would water if he still had a gag reflex. Clint’s hips thrust forward an inch and Bucky lets him. He’s pretty sure he’d let Clint do anything right now as long as he still gets to touch, to drag his mouth up Clint’s cock and feel him squirm.

He gets a little lost in it, the feel of Clint in his mouth and under his fingers. The world narrows down to him and Clint and the shitty carpet under his legs.

Clint yanks at his hair, pulls him back so fast that Bucky gasps as the cock falls out of his mouth. He thinks he's done something wrong until he sees Clint's expression, and then he thinks maybe he's done something extremely _right_instead. It's a nice feeling, some mixture of vicious pride and heady delight. 

"Wanna fuck you," Clint rasps, his fingers still knotted tight in Bucky's hair. "Do you want-"

"Yeah," Bucky croaks, because that's a fucking beautiful image. He hadn't really gotten any further in the planning stage than frantically getting his hands and mouth on as much as he could, but _that's_\- "Yeah, please."

Clint’s fingers loosen on his hair, gently comb through it once before he tugs up, a little more careful than the first time but still guiding Bucky back to his feet. Bucky goes, still shaky in his knees but he still leans in to fit their mouths together. Clint grinds up against him hard and dirty and Bucky can’t stop himself from making a noise. _Fuck,_ that’s nice.

“Lube? Condoms?”

“First drawer,” Bucky directs.

He's at the perfect position for Clint to shift them sideways and then hook his ankle around Bucky’s leg, knock him down onto the mattress smooth as anything. Bucky can’t quite stop himself from running a hand down his own jeans, rocking up into the pressure. Clint’s eyes are wide and dark in the moonlight, almost luminous from the right angle. It feels like he should be looking at Bucky’s body right now but his gaze is fixed firmly on Bucky’s face.

Bucky kind of _likes_ it.

Clint looks like he’s about to say something important, and the expression on his face is somewhere between terrified and turned on. Bucky doesn’t know what it means, can’t _quite_ read it, and then he seems to change his mind, just mutters “fuck” at Bucky and turns to rummage in the drawer for the lube.

Bucky takes the opportunity to kick his jeans and underwear off his legs. They end up somewhere down the end of the bed and he really doesn’t care as long as they’re not getting in his way. He sits up to pull his sweater off, stops with his arms over his head when he realizes Clint’s staring. Bucky pushes down the urge to preen.

“Better than safety net guy?”

Clint laughs, seems a little startled by it. “Not even in the same _league_. You’ve got no idea.”

He kneels on the bed, still mostly dressed as he leans in to kiss Bucky again like he can’t help it, like something’s physically pulling him in. The gloves are gone, though, and his calloused fingers splay out against Bucky’s chest. When he pulls back Bucky can’t help the smile, can’t help asking, “even with my flat ass?”

“You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you,” Clint says as he bites at Bucky’s lip, along his jaw and then down his throat. “Your ass is _fine, _Sergeant Barnes. Ten out of ten.”

“You ain’t too bad y- oh, _shit._”

Bucky’s not afraid to admit he hasn’t done this in a while, but he still knows good fingering and Clint is fucking _brilliant_. Whatever teasing he’d been planning to break the tension evaporates under Clint’s slick hand and it feels like no time has passed before he’s grabbing at Clint with uncoordinated fingers, trying to pull him down.

“Guess it’s kind of late to ask you if you’re sure about this,” Clint says ruefully as he shifts over Bucky, helps get a pillow under his hips.

"Yes, it's too fuckin' late," Bucky grumbles. 

"I just want to make sure, because this is kind of a lot to-"

“Just get your dick in me,” Bucky interrupts, impatient because he’s so turned on he could die. Also, Clint isn’t touching him _nearly_ enough.

He’s fairly sure, in the back of his mind, that Clint could crawl inside of his ribs and make a home inside his chest and it still wouldn’t be nearly enough. It’s possible this was a mistake because he’s already addicted to the gentle but desperate way Clint’s touching him even as he pushes in slowly.

His breath catches in his throat. It hadn’t felt like a big deal when he’d agreed to it earlier, but it’s a _lot_. Clint’s fucking him. When did his life get so off-kilter that he’s ended up fucking a murderous vigilante in a dumpy apartment downtown, and why is it quite possibly the best thing he’s felt in years?

Clint presses a kiss to the side of his knee, just a little feather-light thing, and Bucky melts.

“Okay?”

“Move,” he manages, hips jerking as slick fingers wrap around his aching dick.

Clint does move, then, and it’s far too much for Bucky’s overheated brain. He’s not rough, not really, but it’s still hard and inescapable, so goddamn much that Bucky feels it in his teeth. Clint’s free hand runs up the outside of his thigh. It feels faintly possessive, a little reverent based on the expression on his face. Bucky doesn’t want him to stop.

He was never going to last long. Bucky can still taste Clint on his tongue, and he’s wound up tight and overwhelmed by how good it all feels. That’s not including the extremely thorough handjob he’s getting piled on top of the dick inside of him, sparking heat on every single nerve he has. It feels like all the air in the room has disappeared and he’s gasping uselessly, ears straining for every punched-out noise Clint makes.

It’s not enough, it’s too much, Bucky hopes no one ever finds his corpse so he can stay in this moment forever. The building tension in his spine gets more insistent, harder to ignore as Clint twists his hand and shoves in deep, and then Bucky’s coming so hard it’s nearly painful.

“Fuck,” he breathes when he remembers how to speak, shudders as Clint’s fingers drag up his oversensitive dick. There’s come up his stomach and even on his fucking chest, and he squirms a little.

He realizes a second later that Clint’s still hard inside of him, just watching his face with blown pupils and his teeth sunk into his lip. The tension is nearly visible, hard lines of muscle underneath the jacket he’s still wearing. It’s like he’s more interested in taking Bucky apart than he is in getting off, and Bucky lets his head fall back against the pillow, grabs for Clint’s hand and holds on tight even though it’s wet with his come.

“Keep going,” he says. “Just- I want to.”

He doesn't want to stop at all. The permission was apparently all he needed, because Clint starts up again with his hard rolling thrusts and it’s even worse this time. By worse he means better, or at least that’s what Bucky _thinks_ he means because the pleasure is edging right on pain and those hitching moans are coming from him and not Clint. That’s not to say that Clint isn’t making any noise, because he is, although he’s not _quite_ as loud.

“’m gonna,” Clint gets out and he sounds even more wrecked than Bucky feels.

“Do it, fuck, _Clint,_” Bucky gasps. The minute the words leave his mouth Clint’s rhythm stutters, and Bucky finds that _very_ interesting through the oversensitive twitches and the face Clint makes when he comes.

“Fuck,” Clint breathes, looking shaky and overwhelmed as he pulls out, and Bucky grabs for him, tugs him down. He’s probably getting come on the Ronin suit but fuck it, it’s not like he cares. Clint’s nose is cold when he presses it against Bucky’s neck and presses a kiss there.

Bucky wonders how long it’s been since someone has addressed him as just _Clint_ and not Ronin. Whether people talk to him at all, even, outside of Bucky himself. It's not exactly a social business, killing the mob. He gets his fingers in sweaty hair, pets carefully and doesn’t say anything about the dampness he can feel on his bare skin.

“You’re kind of bossy,” Clint says after a few long minutes, and Bucky snorts.

“Didn’t hear you complainin’,” he answers.

“I didn’t. I wasn’t,” Clint admits, sounds a little smug even with his voice muffled by Bucky’s skin. Bucky lets him be smug. He deserves it, after everything. Bucky’s happy to supply him with something that makes him happen, even if it benefits _him_ heavily as well. It makes him feel a little less selfish, knowing Clint liked it as well.

Bucky pulls him a little closer, holds on as tight as he can without it getting uncomfortable. He doesn’t say any of the four million things he’s thinking. It’s easier to just keep petting Clint absently and enjoy the warm buzz lingering in his muscles.

“Home run on the first date,” Clint mumbles absently.

Bucky doesn’t understand why baseball is a sex metaphor now and he has no clue what base is what, so he remains silent. This isn’t really a _date_, either, it’s just both of them giving into the tension that appears whenever they’re in the same room. Bucky’s not sure that either of them could handle a proper date. He just _likes_ Clint, it’s as simple as that.

It should probably be more complicated than that, but it isn’t. He doesn’t _care._

Bucky’s not sure when he fell asleep. He only wakes up long enough to vaguely register lips pressing to his forehead and the covers being pulled up over his body. Distantly he knows something’s going on, and he reaches out clumsily, looking for something he can’t remember right now. His hand gets caught between warm fingers and settled back down on the sheet and the worry subsides as soon as it’d appeared.

“I’ll see you around, baby,” a voice says, soft and a little amused, and Bucky barely manages to register the words before sleep drags him down again.

He wakes up alone, like he thought he would. It takes a few minutes for him to sit up on the mattress, and even though his muscles don’t twinge the way they used to, he still has the memories to cling onto. There’s no sign of last night other than the damp cloth on the windowsill and the missing trashcan by the bed. On a second look, it’s by the door and apparently clean. Huh. How about that.

Bucky gets up and finds his pants.

A month later, they’re on a mission.

“Looks like we’re not the first people here,” Steve says grimly.

“And here I thought someone had finally got rid of his ass,” Sam says, using his boot to nudge a bloodstained hand that isn’t attached to a body.

The corpses are fresh. Steve’s got his nose scrunched up like he’s smelled something bad, and they shrug at each other before Sam pulls out his phone to start messaging someone. Probably notifying SHIELD that there’s already been someone on the scene. Steve keeps walking, goes up to a panel on the wall to look at it more closely.

Bucky stays where he is and happens to glance up at the exact moment there’s a glint of steel and black leather heading up into a hole in the roof.

A person with normal eyesight wouldn’t see the there-and-gone-again wave of a gloved hand before the figure disappears into the shadows.

“I think someone hit him on the head in the way in,” Sam says in the background. Bucky’s still looking at where Clint had been. “No one smiles in a building full of corpses without some sort of extra brain trauma.”

“Buck? You okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, tries to bite down on the smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> winterhawk bingo square: ronin/cap!bucky
> 
> Title Song: [Reset Me - Nothing But Thieves](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgYe5DEzIVM)


End file.
